Beerspit Night and Cursing (20 page)

All that I could write Webb was that the main thing was to print the good poem, and if that good poem had a name attached to it, all right. It is better than printing unknown mediocrity. And that the young man’s inferring that he (Webb) had no talent was unkind and could possibly be untrue. And that considering the time and effort involved, all the type-sticking, cost of paper, type and ink, correspondence and reading of submissions, advertising and publicity, the cost was well over a dollar a copy. And that it would be all right for Webb to show his face in the streets.

I don’t know why in the hell I had to get involved.

Yes, the young man is probably “dedicated”, but I think it would be more important for him to dedicate himself to the poem and to get off the soap-box.

Why shouldn’t Webb print his son, you ask?

Well, Sheri, it’s like a man giving his son a new Cadillac when he is 9 years old and cannot yet see over the windshield.

Let Webb Jr. get on his bicycle first and make his
OWN
way down the street. It will make a better man of him.

Lob,

Buk

11/jan/61 sm pobx 46 san gregorio/calif/

buk my dear/ i agree with you letters do “drain”—I use them to “record” things that one cant record any other place—but even my energy is beginning to tire of the work/ rec. yr targets & are in mail/

no “Pound yr man”—he was my teacher—one was educated by him…any other relationship’s non-transferable/

All right will read yr Jeffers as
ORDERED
…no not really “mad” about
Horse on Fire
…if one
took you to task about it in A & P
—pray don’t mind that—it’d ruin you if Martinelli praised you—

Webb sound’d sincere but ignorant/ newspaper mind-state—miller (henwry) & so forth

the altar has gone still & one is in here doing that A & P now finished all but for a few half paragraphs to ‘fill in’ with small talk that is nevertheless part of fun/

I sent yr
Target
with the signature alone / to Laughlin that one met at St. Liz / I think you are among the best here—although I lament some details in you /

I am very disappointed with Ernie’s letters—what a contrast to yrs—it does hurt me & I cannot write him / not really / he hath desire to impress…whereas yrs are filled with sincerity in confucian sense…not the christian “let us confess” sort/ Po Li enjoys you…he is one of yr most devoted admirers/

Hokusai
at 90 still hoping for time to work so he cd do his best work & Ez saying that it took 75 years to locate the
Coke books
/ & right now I am thinking that if I live to be 110 I still wont have time to do everything that has been started/ yes
OREGANO
is a fine herb…never used it in eggs before but will & of course got some/ right now am making a perfume of herbs…will send you down some when finished…as will be more a temple essence than a perfume…

yr foreigners sound right fine / no Sherman aint “one of my camp” dear Buk/ he was a soul in hell & I saw his good qualities…& that he was in the dark & he always was of good will & manners toward me…more than I can say about the rest of them in Frisco—I am glad he’s working on the
Examiner
as it is the better blatt in frisco—& has the excellent Mike Grieg & Chas. Einstein on it/ doubt if Jory’ll “own it in 10 years” or even 10,000 / and as for Wang/ one has known him so long & so well as a person…but I left it all behind me long ago…when I left Frisco…they run in a circle…Buk & one was left out…& too lonely…long’s I was going to be that lonesome…I might as well be down here…alone totally all day/

Ernie will forever be blessed for the few good things he did me & I doubt if it breaks a “tenet” of Ezra’s—Buk…I don’t really think anything matters much today…what will it mean in 2000 years…

Ernie moved me to keep working & I was too sad—one is a playful & happy thing & Frisco was dark & sad…there is nothing to do in Frisco but use a narcotica of some sort…I shook the dust of Frisco offf ffff my feet…

I’d like so much to see Europe & I realise I got a lottt of provincial in me that must be done away with before the gods will grace me with a vision of Europe/

I don’t think it hurt Ernie to get him off that damned abstract stuff…onto the classics…of course he is not Ezra—but he did do some good/ nevertheless I am glad to be alone…I must finish these jobs begun/

Gib’s strength is Chinese patience & Gib’s the best really/
he does dig yr prose style in the letters/ you knock him out…he makes me read every word outloud…to him/ Ernie bores him—although he knows how Ernie fit in when he did fit in/ Ezra did not take me to Italy because I married Po Li/

Oh Payne is so local a chap but he’s doing good in a bad world I suppose

By “late Victorian” I mean—not yr style nor manners nor ideals…but where yr mind is focused/ upon the torment of life & the hell each person is in/ tho “mid Victorian” still is not the correct label…no…

[
illegible
]ng passed if it is a male or female…just so it is an intelligence…[
illegible
] earth…

no my dear Buk/ not trying to “educate the masses”…“raising the general cultural level” is not “educating the masses”—Yes—the Jews & yes the Negroes…

“I suffered from something else…”

me too / it was not until one met Ez that one discovered a person suffering from the same thing/ which is why I prefer him to any other—he’d gone after the remedy for what we alone suffer…

No darling Ernie is
NOT
der son of Gott—’s all right/ he merely did what no one else had done…and he was very nice about it/ Gib’s moststrong…don’t worry & Ernie is already starched up/
IF
one cd only get him off that abstract shit that he takes refuge in rather than think straight…no matter…today everything seems hopeless…& useless…one will go take a sun bath on the point & leave it all behind one…

ALL
right soon’s I get near a library I will read that book…but I do believe I read it at Tommy Yee’s & didn’t like it then but I was not entirely whole at the time…will read it Buk you…wotever…yes I will.

Sent Ez yr Signature/ & trust he will enjoy…now my lamb I will go take a sun bath as I said…it all seems silly & futile today…

and love…

Sheri &

Po’ Li

The horse article was entertaining…will send on to Ez—

13/fri/jan/61 sm pobx 46 san gregorio calif/

Buk! an old letter never mailed! read ’n forget

I guess you sd Ez wuz a dear Granite haid/ wotever on a post card/ anyhow I donno wot it means but luv—Shed

one sent you that “look up” because you do persist in mailing po.cds. when all in this town of 250 souls read my mail/ dotz vy & dotz
ALL
one meant…& Buk/ really! I may be a “woman” but I yam still a Lady/ now listen you HardHead/ the same thing wrong with yr post card is wot’s wrong with yr poetry…You presume/ newspaper myths are not valid/

One will
NOT
discuss the Germanl/Jew burning situation with any German
OR
Jew who was not on the premises at the time/ only they qualify to speak/ you have not spoken to Ezra & you don’t qualify to say whether he “became Fascisti” nor have you any idea wot it means/ you were not there at the time/ You fly to conclusions/

Ezra Pound was reading Confucius & good government at the precise time that the leaders of the country he’d lived in for 20 years became interested/ it was most noble & natural for the old gent to speak up/ If you want to call him a “fascisti” do go right ahead/ worse men than you have said it/

If you think that all a poet must do on earth is fuck women & then squeal in his poetry on their most secret conversations & call it art…or drink himself to death…then you think that…
I KNOW
different/ I don’t give a hoot in hell wot the monkey minds say/ you are not yet a poet & if you dare sit on that soft pillow & belch & fart away…you’ll lose yr soul/

The difference between a pose & an action is that one poet poses as a poet & the other poet takes action as a man/ no matter wot his profession he is still a man & his conduct will be judged as manly or dogly/ Jory Sherman don’t count & he never will/ Allen Ginsberg counts on 2 scores/ or points: 1/ his inborn love & tenderness no matter what the Party sez/ 2/ his bravery & nobility in doing wot th’ pawrty sez/which is more than I got in my camp/ no men…just dithering blathering shells of their former shells/

You do not know the history of poetry nor understand its basic necessity in our kind/ we are poets for the same reason the Jews are ‘comedians’ because Bob Hope can rise & say in a joke what he’d never dare say as a man…that don’t mean Old
Hawkmouth & SkiJumpNose aint a man/ but his role here is as a comic/

your verse is still “christian” in that you are confessing in public…and most ignobly/ you spill the beans on every female that trusted you…how can you dignify yr position as a poet? If you belonged to Capone’s mob & pulled that stuff man he’d have you washed away…shd I be less a mobster than Capone? I don’t like those public confessions of yrs on who fkd who that you believe is a poem…

Bukowski it is time you became a
MAN
…then write poetry goddammit/

Allen Ginsberg is more of a man right at this moment on earth…than any white christer walkin’/sittin’/standin’/layin’ or dead except Ezra Pound/ Po Li don’t get included in the christer dept. as he’s a Confucian by birth & breed/

Also Allen make a general protest & howl in hell…whereas you write against those women you held in love’s embrace & I downgrade you for it & so wd Ez & any person who knew love/ it is pppppppppppIGnobility to ‘squeal’ but of course who you are squealin’ on & into whose hands you deliver them& is really the crime/

Now do stop it & get down to business & forget what the gang tells you…be serious Bukowski—it is a time for serious people/ the women of this land are more awake & serious than the men/ oh I cant finish this…I’m back at work painting…it is very easy…just lay out the stuff & paint as you go by…like one does everything else…as one thinks of it or sees it/ please do not write post cards bukowski—the only way one can do all this work is not being any sort of “celebrity” or woteverhellspelled/ love to you even tho’ I doubt if you know wot it means…

Sheri

Jan what? 13, 1961

Shed, hello:

I ran off rail with card. Do not cease correspondence. It is that sometimes in a flux of nerves I get the sensation of cracking leaves under my feet. It is nothing.

Rec’vd your side of house and cat and shirttail thing. You have a good face, and I envy you your dry mess of plant-vine thing crawling along side of house. It is good to look into such a net and smoke a cigarette in the sun.

Yes, you’re right, Pound is my man. Jeffers.
Conrad Aiken.

I have not read Jeffers for years. Oh, I did the other day. Came across a pome of his in some type of pocketbook anthology of modem verse. He appeared, in this poem, to be playing strongman. We can’t play at being strongman. We must simply be. This is basic, a grammar of the psyche, and I do not mean to go through it. We can damn well play but we mustn’t pose. It’s all in words and we are throwing paint, and sometimes it becomes a mess, and when we get a name and begin to write
UNDER
that name, we begin to fall down through. Pound has not weakened. There are so few men I can say this of.

Oye, Shed, it’s ok to curl mine hair in A and P; I do not take to any praise with too much pleasure. If you would attempt to place a cookie in my mouth it would do me in.

Yes, you have Webb down right. He is trying, and he does not
PUT ON
too much. In a letter or two I have from him, he uses words like “shit” and “fuck” and “god damn”, which, of course, shows he is trying too hard not to
PUT ON
, which in a sense, is the same thing. More basics that you already know as I can see from your good face in the photo. You are one of the few women since Sappho who has given us light.

Be careful with the
LEAF OREGANO
in your eggs. It takes very little and too much can become musky and make you ill for days; it can be like falling into a stinking swamp. I have learned just what to pinch in with my fingers, and of course, each day we feel a little different, and the difference that you need, more than yesterday or less, you move in with your fingers and then everything’s ok. And I like my coffee as hot as it can get: this brings the mind and the body together. If I eat outside and get a warm cup of coffee, bath-water warm, the meal is wasted.

It is difficult for me to write Sherman. And yet his letters are flip and bright in a sense, and full of viv. And let me tell you something about Jory, since I’ve knocked him now and then (I
suppose I have; I think one of yr letters gave me this feeling—and I think there is
a poem of mine about Jory
to be published somewhere),J. does
NOT TALK OUT OF SCHOOL
about vitals. At least, what he
THINKS
are vitals. And, his vitals are not always mine. But there is a certain sense of honor in him, although that is not quite the word. There I have almost said something good about J.

Returning the
Fastest Insight Alive
. Not much there for me.

Although I must confess that I actually do subscribe to the
Kenyon Review
. I don’t know why, but most of the articles
fill
me, not in a sense of information, but rather in their offhand desperate objective gallantry like a horse trying to run around a barn and not catch on fire. The poetry, of course, is dead, completely dead, even the best of it. I suppose the S[outhem]. Review and K[enyon]. Review printed a little D. Thomas; I think I remember reading a little of it in a Phila. library, but you know D. was only good when he was good because he took the language and ran it through his personal mould, not caring how it came out, as long as the sound of it made a line across paper. But I sensed, that going on with it, he became weak, writing
UNDER
his name; but he was smart enough to keep drinking because he sensed that that would keep them from swallowing him completely up…He swallowed himself up, rather, and that was the end.