The secret of my endurance

I still get letters in the Mail
Mostly from cracked up men in tiny rooms with factory jobs or no jobs
Or living with whores or no women at all
No hope, just booze and madness
I get most of their letters on lined paper
Written with an unsharpened pencil or in ink
In tiny handwritings that slant down to the left
And the paper is most often torn
Usually halfway up the middle
And they say they like my stuff
I’ve written from where it’s at, they recognize it truly
I’ve given them some chance, some recognition
Of where it’s at
It’s true, I was there
Even worse off than most of them
But I wonder if they realize where their letter arrives
Well, it is dropped into a box on a wire fence,
Behind a six foot hedge
And a long driveway
With a two car garage
Rose garden, fruit trees
Animals, a beautiful woman
Mortgage about half paid after years residence
A new car, two cars
Fireplace and a green rug, two inches deep
With a young boy to write my stuff now
I keep him in a ten square foot cage,
With a typewriter

Feed him whiskey and raw horse
Belt buckle him pretty good,
Three or four times a week

I’m 60 years old now, and the critics say
my stuff is getting better than ever