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 Bullsh**, 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 Gla** doors and as I did, I thought, son of a b**h 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