Beerspit Night and Cursing (7 page)

No, no Chinese shits as I do not need this, and doubt I will write Miles again. He is a twister and turner of things and will not take you coming straight on.

I read
Pound’s letters to Theobald in
Light Year
and he certainly treated Payne to slap of disdain he deserves. Gramps reads well these human things that flop about making sick sounds.

damn Pain:
I DON’T WANT TO KISS ALL THINGS
, esp. lacy air-frilled 1/8 souls and assholes. he
MAKES
me curse, not thru weakness or lack of frampold phrases but what do u do with lichen?

yes, I did not understand how Henry Luce got in there. Miles prob read an article in N.Yorker in which everybody made great big something more than they are, the words running along like crazy horses filled with wine.

If you were a male, Sheri, you would be famous. Womanhood is always held against one like a gun. You are up in the minaret but they will bring u down won weigh or another.

u doubt if Miles has read Ez or understood him/ I doubt that he could.

Remember how
Murray used to knock Lawrence?
And
K.Boyle
slapping him in short story when sick, even
K.Shapiro
pomeing him down. Lawrence much more weak points than Pound but Ez will have his detractors, naturally, and we don’t care, it shows he is
GETTING
them. Yes,
Lawrence poem on snake
at water well, classic to me…

This pot about Lawrence standing darkly upright in middle of jungle waiting for animals to bow down. Let’s put Miles in same spot in his lacyies, he probly wacky in ten minutes. Draw puzzles to make points u (miles) are not strong enough to hold self. This man is climbing in my brain like a rat nibbling.

yes, Jeff meant men created equal by law but the others twist this thing to make it sound good to them. men are, however, not even created equal by law, for the law is to protect the rich against the poor.

don’t worry about the drinks; when I die no one will weep.

I cannot attempt a form of thots for my letters because it must come natural and I cannot push. So it will have to go like this, but I understand what you mean and u are correct but I must be careful not to borrow or bluff, and until then…

No, I have not seen the A & P Rev.

On the
Wm. Morris thing
, a poem for it, I don’t know. I will try to find something, and if they want it, all right.

I’m not feeling too good, am going to close now. duck the Po Li bowl.

awright,

Charles

Charles Bukowski

ps—forgive this…these greasy fingerprints but I read this while eating, certainly too weak to retype. ate little can of chicken stew to try to help stomach. drank 2 cans beer, wonderful Wagner on radio. will try to thro in couple of pomes and then go to sleep. I will try to build myself up during week. old girlfriend says I almost reached end this time. sleep. sleep, jesus, wonderful: nobody around but Wagner.

c.b.

here we go again, psss
^*
—

geeus sheri

I have started drinking I am over the edge and so sick butt I got bored typing pomes and had to have sumthing to keep meee going or ging as I like to sae. look, I will
not dye. Rlax. 4 as frie sad: u vealbastard bukski are too meeen to die, ;;; and so prob will live to be oller than my spirit-buddy Pound hoo has lived so long because big fire hard to put out. u good girl sheri, am mailing this…

I think wot hurt me, I hated most in Miles…wen he intimated I did not care for music. a hoorible untruu blow an made me sick.

music, paint, I need u. Miles Pain, never.

Bukow

Los Angeles Fri, July 23? 22?

Dear Sheri:

Got yr bread, letter, copy
A & P
, all in good shape—also all your other corro. Have read much steady the earlier corro and am now working on later and bit of good bread. This is simply very short thing to say I will answer all come Sunday when the shade is around and the breathing.

Thanx for bread. Spiritwise I don’t think anything better has happened to me for sometime. I am not joking. Very good, fulfills in many ways and angles. This way I get the message good: somebody doesn’t want me to die. I have saved the wrapper and will buy more of same when this is gone. Buk bows a reverent bow smiling all the way inside down…

Sherman in town, leaving Sunday, I unnerstand. I spell lousy because I was baptized in icewater. Germany, born in Germany, parents splints of steel. Sherman yes. No tank he. Gazzele. Gazelle. Guzzle. Running all over town, panting, people people people.
Robert Young. James Boyer May. Curtis Zahn
. This and that. Names. Staying with editor of
Breakthru
…editor Brkthro homosexual, wot or else. Sherman can’t
see things. Awful this running around: does this make poems, this dog-licking? I tried to tell him. He say: No, these people don’t touch me; I remain the same.

Jory only thinks so because he wants to think so. Everything touches one way, hover or elephants. He threw my name to one of the dogs.

Christ, where
is
this guy? somebody said. Nobody’s ever seen him.

Ah, gladness!

Now that I have seen Sherman, I will say: essentially nice guy. Talk talk but no can take joke from leftflank; always serious and it is not good to be always serious. When they send me to hell, the first thing I will do is laugh—not with sound but inside like waterfalls and blip blip breaking.

He read latest poem or 2. Sounded quite a bit like me but that’s all right, he was a little too much in the violets. And he cut
all
the violets out. He should have left one or two. Desert sand.

Payne and Fry do not bother me. I do not want to write or tell them anything. We will all leave each other splendidly alone and the Gods will push us on…and off and into.

Pushed big fat colored man around around around the blocks this morning. Air all dry. Nothing breathing. Sidewalks like rims of things. His car would not start. We both sweat. Ah hell. death, death, death.

But this is short note, as I said. I will write fully Sunday, if I am alive. Must reread your things again. I have them lined up and in big flipflop box with my scirwritings…Good for all. Hello Po’ Li. The bread is breeding violets in the desert of my mind. Sunday then. I should be in yr mailbox Tuesday, rattling Bukow.

sweet sounds sweet visions, Princess…

Charles

all right, los angeles
sunday I want what
I want what I wanted
July toofour, onenine 6ho…

Yes, She Ri, Princess:

yeah, hella lotta cosmic pressure. yur dear sweet jory hoo is gong ta cross the Yordan just lef town, fonin frum depot…what’re you doing? he asked. What a peccadillo. I was taking a crap.

Jordan Jory all over town, miscegenation and moil, seeing this person, that person, this person, that person, phoning, drinking, talking, praising phrasing parsley psing aleuta and wow. If he’s gonna cross the Jordan I hope I am not in the same boat.

He finally dragged me over to
Pillin’s wm
the. It turned out all right. There was soul there, pottery ceram, piano with very good son like stalk making the keys etna etude and song running up my elbows. very good sun, needs woman, he will die otherwise, they will kill him.

oh Princess, I have eaten the last slice of your brown bread; it will not be the same when I buy it.

No, I’m not dr bro smoke, I’m dear brother ashes, please remember.

Miles? again? why mention? except hilarity and carp.

Jordanjor also dragged in homo over to my place hoo spoke of his beautiful writhing flicking tongue and etc., sum god damn editor
Breakthru
, and we went over to his place, he spouted poetry all the way down steps of my apartment hourse horse and wen we got over to his place palace, he changed thro wifefocus, an induveate wife, and she complained later about the drinking. oh, we know all the artists and actors, fine peeple, and Norm, you said you wouldn’t drink anymore…etc. and on, standing there by the table blathering, all nerves, children running about shooting thru doorways like rockets, Norm and Jory sitting there reading their poetry to each other and Buk sitting there sweating and dying, and when she gave the message I got it and grabbed all the beer, threw it into big bag and blew in my
handsomehorsecar that can so flight me frum pain. oh, I had paid for all th beer an I damn well drank all that was left because I got the
MESSAGE
and helped
SAVE
them all. After they got rid of me they went out to see the actor Robert Young. oh boy.

before whathell message she had pulled all the beer outa the refrig. and lined it up along the sink. I went into kitchen and said, what the hell, hoo tooka the beer outa icebox and threw it into sink? I shoulda got the message early but instead I stuffed it all back inside.

how in the hell can you cross the Jordan when you worry about beer and Robert Young?

Ginsburg has a bad wire somewhere in the set that lights him up.

Nobody invented E.Pound. I was going to say he invented us, but that’s too easy, and besides he would have done a better job.

I was over at girlfriends other nite, and I tol’ her, Jesus, this Sherman is driving me nuts, I don’t know what to do with him.

Well, she said, maybe he can’t help it, maybe you’re his idol. Everybody has an idol, even you. Ezra Pound is your idol.

Yes, I said, but look, if Ezra Pound were sitting in the bar right downstairs I would not go into that bar, he would never know.

Don’t worry about Sherman, she said. If you’ve got it you won’t change. And I think you got it. And I wouldn’t go into that bar downstairs if Jesus Christ were sitting there. Pass the wine…

The last line is not true about Christ. She would go.

If I had been a party member in 1940, I would be a party member now. I know that the basics are still there. I am not a political man but I believe all this changing over is weak-souled.

The
Keblah
never changes.

To hell with the
West Coast of Africa
. I have my own w coast of Africa.

Ezra can murder; I cannot, or else I would kill sherman.

don’t worry about poor negro boys with their eyes full of pain. give them a little vanilla icecream, they are playing a game.

Yesterday I bought 2 86cent shirts made in
HONG KONG
and I am very proud. Sheri some day u and I and Po’ Li must go to China and we will bring me back a woman who cannot speak english and we will marry and everyday we will simply look at each other in silence and there will be nothing to spoil it, only silence and music. Forgive me, I am mad.

Yes, I guess Ez needs his oyster stew, raw eggs, celery greens…It is nice to know that he is human.

Cannot read Canto 90 right now, do not have book, must downtown and I fear downtown but will finally. I understand I should have the book. Do not chide me Princess of the Bread.

Ez remained young because the fire is still burning, it’s quite simple, you i know that. I don’t know about the innocent part.

I don’t
want
Fry back, please. I am so glad it happened. She murdered me every time she spread the sheets. I don’t want to hurt her; I do not want to hurt anything, even a bug—see
Death of a Roach, Epos
Winter 1959. By the way, this issue contains Jory Sherman’s 3 best poems, they are better than mine but something has happened since then. Jory wants too badly to be famous. All this politic, seeing people, editors, reading before the masses. It is not true. Jory’s guiding god is pulling the wrong strings and the oscillation and gabble and grab dankens the mind…oh, on Wang, I gather from Sherman that he is…shall we say…heterocephalous.

don’t make enemies, simply reajust your sights, means: take it easy, if you bark at dogs they still will not hear you.

I did not imply John too low down, I say a man should not
READ A TRIBUTE TO HIS OWN GOD DAMN SELF
, or what or what or what. This is basic sense to me and I cannot see you so much missing the point.

Wang is average poet. Stock has read too much.

A real poet
has one fist of steel and one fist of love.

You are a good person, Sheri, but you have taken in too many stray dogs.

Sherman sits there and tells me, don’t laugh, don’t.

I’ve got to laugh. He tells me he gave a poetry reading at Unicorn and they passed the plate and all he got was a quarter.

Jesus, I was laughing
for
him. I suppose if he had collected 65 dollars he would have assumed he was a good poet, a good reader, et al. Why do people always get everything backwards?

Sherman can lance but can’t take the lance. Fry used to say, Why do you always
laugh
at yourself? Why do you always
mock
yourself?

And I say, why not? Who are we trying to sell? I see nothing but grave stones and hundred dollar whores everywhere. Or ten dollar whores who call themselves housewives.

I don’t know what color my eyes are. They have told me that they are green. But I have looked into the mirror and I have never seen this color god damn before in art class or sunsets or what, although it does look a bit like the pan you clean your brushes out in. So Ez is prob still only
GREEN EYED
poet and he can relax…

Clarence Major
is just another ass to fuddle up the stream.

gv Jricharson a brk, means: give him a break with a vbrick. Now u can ast me wot this means.

On the morning of August 16th: I will light 40 candles and die with a can of Schlitz in each hand.

Yes, yes, is like taking a rolled-up piece of paper and swatting a fly from the curtain. Writing is so easy it makes me laugh to know the secret of it. One must simply not be greedy, that is all.
DO NOT SWAT THE SHIT CURTAIN WHEN THERE ARE NOT ANY FLIES ON IT
.