Beerspit Night and Cursing (37 page)

If you see the book you will know what I mean.

I am waiting for the sun and the object
to make a new shadow.

I got out the paints the other day and the tubes were so hard I could not use them; boiled them in water but no good. Finally got a little green and scarlet and did a pic. of twisted leg man with bug eyes swimming along a candle with some christ bleeding thing in upper left, the red coming down to page bottom pool. Not all that dramatic but done more in the cool half-joke, but sad. Folded in half and mailed somewhere.

Don’t let them hang you, baby.

Not yet.

love,

Buk

[
handwritten postcard dated by SM 27 August 1963
]

Dear Sheri—

can’t write with these g.d. post office pens.—Book soon out. Webb up to page 82. If you have not made arrangements—let me know and I will send one when out.

In the workhouse now and must get back on their clock. Let me know on the book.

L.,

Buk

10. Feb. 64 La Mart pobx 1044 pacifica calif

open that goddamm’d door Bukowski—the Princess is home again! Lemme
IN
—

Gotcher
book
& you must be unconscious with love—it is a bewt babe & I thank you with heart / loaned it to Layde of Arts & Letters next cot[tage] & she cant live without one—hope Webb’s got a copy left & wrote him to ask—

Been very soul sick lamb & cdn’t write—cdn’t do aught but weep—terrible fit of self-pity—cdn’t see the pattern for the warp & woof—it do hurt so when they warp & woof you—but at last—it cohered for 5 minutes so I let up yawlin’—Jez Xt what a fit of woe—you’d have been weeping with me—
Ollie
(our Layde above) says “do
Y E W
know
HIM?”
/ “who” sez I coiyoily to drag out the moment soupreme after the rest of the treatment of claw barb—“
OH HHHH
mmmmmmm…oh of
KOURSE
” (wotd else)

My god—buk you doll—she is now a tame tigress—and yr poetry will make her drawers wet again—if you ever came to visit—she’d fall apart—but darling
YOU
would
RUIN
the effect—she is seeing A HollyWoodttt Version in her mindtts eye—wait til she reads yr work!!

I was painting as I wept—that also prevents writing—but I got yr book & I loaned yr book out & it got a customer—and I hope you can supply her a copy / what is the price $5. ??? she is still reading my copy & I don’t know.

Write thou—and what is this abt you refusing to admit one
Hunter Ingalls
to yr workshop sometime a while back?? Sir O Sir—this is a good man // and he can
SEE
La Mart without gazing through her Ezra Pound recording—

Write me darling—I
MISS
your touch! What is going on down there??? O my Carrot lying on the Super Mercado shelf of der Health midtt joy shop???

[
an illustrated, scroll-like letter dated 14 February 1964; CB had sent SM some of his drawings
.]

O Colourful One:

Did you Sir upon above occasion deliver yourself of a “highly-defensive negative”?

“Workshop”—even the toilet is a work-shop. The apologists have terms but it is still a work-shop.

Your
BED
, Charles, is a strong, non-union, over-time, moon-lightin’ second-fronted
W O R K - SHOP
.

The word was employed to raise yr general cultural level. Your place of work
IS
your work shop.

Please do
NOT
shout at me in flaming red or apple green.

Li: “look at the two little dogs under his bed.” S.M.: “
IF
I know his mind-state they are two little mice or mayhap rats.” Po’ Li: “wow” sez he “even his mice are horses…”

Yr letter is putty as D[orothy].P[ound]. says pretty.

Yr drawing of yrself in bed is good; shows u got hold of yrself now / yr other drawings vibrated too much. Also your mountains are too point-y.

Where did you get yr black pen. I
NEED
a black pen like that. Where did you get yr colour pens. I
need
colour pens like that.

NOTHING
in this world is worth
ANY
thing except a good conversation. We are all dead down here—dead & condemned—this is Hel—none of us know it except me’n you.

You
MEAN
yr head
cant
get any
FAT
rrrrrr dontcha?

One has written to Webb & one will write to him again—req. another copy besides Ollie’s—a copy for present for
NHP
@ Yale—

Yes—you shd get a certain percentage just to keep the racket from getting too twisty—“unpaid whores” & so forth…

IT
i s
MISS
“Stop Weeping” to
Y O U
.

Is that the
missing line
: “Even lions dream?” Ollie has my copy & cant check buke // tell me
is
that the missing line; otherwise what?? (In clear talk man)

I thought old Corrington’s words were silly & near ruined the effect of the buke. The colours were pleasing & some of yr verse also.

Maybe
YOU
got doors in yr head but I have not. I have nothing in
MY
head save the highest and most sacred ideals to waft me through this Shit River wherein
ALL
my brothers & sisters are wallowing delighted to have something to toss at one another. I suggest you
RE
move those doors in the back of your head, my dear Bukowski and go get your supply of high ideals. You should read a little more H.D. Old Creaker—it wd supply the missing link in yr chain & shut those horrid, drafty doors.

Even poets have ideals.

Now—be a good boy & eat what the neighbors send in—

24. martius. 64 s.m. po bx 1044 pacifica calif [
another illustrated, scroll-like letter
]

dear buk

thank u for the coloured
DRAW A LOT
no I mean: the
DRAWS A LOT
—a far cry fr Lance a Lot or Gal ah had but as colourful—the colour pens have kept my bed-bug ego still for at least an hr…now I know what to look for to locate others…they lend a touch of anarchy to the hands—power mysteriously free-flowing with only a touch—

nothing happens here—not even me—ernie trys to get spinoza’s words into my head but his new wife is jawlouse—yet good now got 2 middle size pups—dolls…teddybears…am v. remote today—don’t know why…in orbit i guess

got yr 2 books—
targets 15
—gave ernie’s wife one copy—& read one copy & will place one copy beneath eyes of nhp…he just got bk fr mother india

nothing o nothing new here…just love to you & encl the $ for the d r a w s—A—l o t…the new knight…am also dull today as well as remote

will sleep now in camper until time to go—dreaming’s

sometimes better than thinking…not all dreams…just now & then

u didn’t write no letter zo wut kin oye a n s w e r ? I just drew some anarchistic pichurs forya

now she lays her down to sleep on th camper floor and dreams a dream…good night dear buk…right in mid-day midtown san francisco

fr

Ra Set—princess of kingdom Wu Tsi Yen

1. june. 64

buk/ i wondered
W H E R E
you were—glad to know you are there—(I sent 2$ for colours to yr
old address
…hope you rec.)

this yang has been black—last week was b l a c k—i think it has something to do w/the lousy music—

no news…just walking the razor edge barefoot…painting don’t save the ass fr the fire…nor the back fr the rod

working for
an exhibit
…slow grind

life is hell…earth is hell rather & life is punishment…be good(t) then maybe god will be kare-full…god—“the master deceiver”

all for now…we send love on wings—it will knock at yr window—open & let Love Wing In—offer fragrance & flower—and see it as the University…me ’n you at least got past grade 2—

love, love, love,

Sheri…cosmic scrub girl

[
postscript at top of letter
:] try to drink spring water for a while & get some yeast tablets to put in the beer—yeast puts back the b vits the beer removes—(
joke
…just to take)

Los Angeles, July twenty4 one9six4

Dear Sheri:

I am hung over, sitting here drinking a weak coffee, smoking a Salem which tastes too much like peppermint, and looking out the window. A woman like a cow has just walked by; a very discouraging sight, and as I get older things simply do not look any better. If there has been any progress in the world it is mainly in the way I walk across a room. o, my thanks, for the photographs of your paintings—very saintly and shining stuff in our improper Age.

Well, listen, old man Webb is going to bring out
another collection
of my wurks—all newly written ditties which have not appeared in any of the magazines. No title yet; I seem strangely resistant to thinking one up. Anyhow, you are supposed to tell your friends and enemies to send 3 dollars to Jon Webb, 1109 Rue Royale, New Orleans 16, Louisiana, asking for the new Buk book (no title). 3 bucks is the opening price, and the only reason I huckster this way, like a shiney Jewish stockbroker, is that the old man needs the money, and he’s already shown me paper samples and wild size outlay, and it’s going to be another beauty-mad product of format inventiveness. When the
New York Times (Rexroth)
reviewed
It Catches
(July 5) he said I suffered from too good a press. This might be true: the clown may not match the advance billing or the gaudy circus tent, but this kind of suffering I don’t quite mind too much. Rex also said some people were comparing me to Homer and that I really wasn’t as good as Homer. I don’t know where he hears this crap. This type of literary chatter is best ignored, yet thot it might amuse you. Anyhow,
It Catches
now listed at rare book dealers at 10 dollars. Next year—the moon.

I have moved again and am down on the ground at last. If I fall out a window drunk now I am fairly safe. I am right on the street and I type by the open window with just my shorts on and the people walk by and look in at me and I look out at them in my easy disorder or beerlight and 44 year-old agony. I’ll be 44 on August 16th. and it has been one hell of a ball. The real miracle is that I am still alive and continue to grind out the trash without pushing.

all right now, keep the brushes wet and a stirring in the air.

lub,

Buk

5. august. 64 s.m. pobx 1044 pacifica calif

hail! bukow!

the seed sprouts under the winter’s snow—

re: “saintly & shining stuff in our improper age.” we are at the end of black
Kali Yuga
—and soon it will be springtime in our cosmos—

Very well Buk—Po Li & SM will send their order (when we return) for yr Nameless Child & try to get the rest to do likewise—am glad you got a rev in NYC Times—Wax Roth and/or King Roth was being clever—“too good a press”—you do happen to be the only person on the scene who is
NEAR
to
saying
something when he takes his pen in hand & you have yr own way of seeing—wh is
WHY
yr press is good—Webb does place an odour of sanctity abt you & Wax Wrath wd not be dull enough to let it pass by his feelers—

I can see why they’d compare you to/with Homer—because of yr direct perceptions—but, as yet, your direct perceptions are telluric (earthy) whereas Mister Homer spoke of the three worlds—the written word, what is hidden in the written word & the common understanding of what the written word meant—as yet you speak of the one world wh is—or mayhap the double world—e.g. the written word & the common understanding of what the written word means—as yet, you have not spoken
THROUGH
the written word to those who know & understand what the written word hides that is clear only to them. If&when you are able to do this you wd very much be like Mister Homer—
H.D.
has to say:

What words reveal; what words conceal—

Homer was telling an epic tale; Homer was employing direct perceptions; Homer was using the plain speech of his day and Homer was speaking of the awful journey of the soul & its terrible temptations on its way back to its true home where its faithful & true self awaited it & what was going on with its true & original self or its missing half—To the rude soldiers it was a tale true & bold; to the learned listeners it was good literature & to those who have ears it was what it was.

And
Wax Wrath
knows all this too—and often employs it in his fish-wrap chats—as this reader most certainly understands—Yes—this “type of literary chatter”
does
“amuse me” as it is
NEWS
—wd like to have read his review—if they had real sense in their bone boxes they’d put you out front—they don’t have
ANY
body else—Dylan split /
Behan
ditto—you are a VOICE / academicians don’t really have any true ability to do anything unless they are told—
YOU
tell him—my reputation is the wrong colour for me to do so—but some one shd—

also glad yr bk is now worth $10. bucks—also glad you on ground floor—and 44 is when our baby teeth are being cut—@ age of one hundred and 44—we begin to know a few things for sure—

Wet brushes! man dear—Li & I put in a 10 hr work day—5 days a week & on the week-ends it was dawn to dusk sat & sun working like ants to get work framed / painted & packed for a big exhibit—will send you any pub soon’s get any—

am right now not painting—but things very strange and neverbefore seen stir in the deep currents of the mind sea—pre-historik images taking form now…In a few weeks we 2 taking time off & making it to a wilderness & blow off the sin skins—not even any coffee! gin sing tea for brikfasta for us now—I would sacrifice my mortal self to the Most Ancient High (air)…We taking seeds / water & herbs & spending some time there—so if you hear silence fr this end—she is in retreat & meditation—40 days in the wilderness—

and
YOU
—behave yrself while maw is gone—I invoke and address the magical plants—plants that are red / those that are white / and the brown & black herbs…all these I do invoke