Charles Bukowski - What makes? lyrics

This is hard to explain
I mean who the man was
Anyhow, it was in a large
Structure and he sat in
A chair in uniform, red coat and all
His job was to examine the hand-stamp of
Those who left the structure and returned
There was a lamp you put
Your hand under and the stamp appeared
(god that was work) anyhow
As I put my hand under the lamp
The man asked, "listen, what's your name?"
"Hank" I answered
"listen, Hank" he asked
"what makes a man a writer?"
"well" I said, "it's simple
It's either you
Get it down on paper or you jump off a
Bridge writers are desperate people and
When they stop
Being desperate they stop being writers"
"are you desperate?" "I don't know"
I walked on through and as
I took the escalator up
I saw him sitting there
Probably thinking that it was possibly
Bullshit, he had wanted me
To suggest some special
School, some special way
Like some way to get out of that red coat
It was not an enlightening job
Like designing a bridge or
Batting cleanup for the dodgers but
He wasn't desperate enough
The desperate don't ask they do
And at the top of the
Escalator I pushed through the
Glass doors and as I did, I thought
Son of a bitch
I should have asked him his name
And then I felt bad for him and for myself
But a few minutes later
I had forgotten all about him
And the other way around
And he watched more hand-stamps
Under the lamp and I watched the toteboard
And the horses and the desperate people
Desperate in all the wrong ways, in-
Deed