A base de pan duro y convicciones

[Just for kicks we all went to the Self-Realization Cafe and had mushroom burgers and made up haiku poems. Then one of the others got the bright idea to roll somebody -- and I got panic and I didn't want them to know and I held onto the table so I wouldn't tremble and we went in this bar by the bus depot and waited for somebody to come out and they grabbed him and he only said "no no" and he didn't have a chance. They beat him up good. His face was bloody and his eyes were white and they left him in a little pile like a dung heap, and I watched it all. Going home, the one called Sailor said "Did you see his eyes?" And Dave passed me the bottle and said, "Whattsa matter kid, no guts?" and I felt like they were all coming up then. When I left them, I walked for a while and it was early in the morning and this big old water truck came by and sprayed the sidewalk and the gutter down and the water smelled good and the sun was just coming up above the few trees there are in our neighborhood, below Coit Tower, and through the fog it looked like an eclipse. Going to work were all the people I never see at night, including some waitresses in bandannas and big men with paperback lunches and some kids finally came along to school, one on a bicycle, and some dogs and I went home and listened to the radio and made up haiku poems.]

*Haiku Poems. Rod McKuen, 1959.