Beerspit Night and Cursing (6 page)

yes you are entirely correct—yes gramps said: “i didn’t breed until I was over 40” real artist…yes…do not let them trap you…an artist is the father the mother the wife the husband the child…don’t let them accept less…make them take all
or nothing…baby…you are right…right…Fry is a sentimental trapp’rrrr…yes what you say about Jory is correct…he will have his “back alley fights & lock himself in a cellar for 6 months”…they always take a person like Jory & stick him out front & let his beautiful sincerity…represent…then…he will have a time to “walk on thin ice & face tigers”

he will be dreadfully hurt—I wont let him down…because I saw him help that girl on with her coat…as tho’ she were a lady…he’ll get hurt…
Chester Anderson
was hurt…& he did it to himself…stealing the money & running off to NYC…such a silly cheap trick…only the office boy runs off when the safe is left open…chester now has ruined his reputation…stealing that loot…Jory wdn’t do that…but it will be some other thing…Jory is being placed out front…as a m.c. & so forth & he is so innocent & a very good person…well…some of us are artists & we die the death of an artist…and some of us…do not…no body knows until it is too late & all over…

but you still shdn’t juice that much Buk…dammit all…you republican convention national mind you…you educational…spartan rul’d disciplined spirit you…hand that beer over…doan yew ever let me catch yew doin’ that agin…but stand by…when sweet Jory crosses the Jordan…because I predict it…only his “back alley” will be the psychic fight…& the wonder why…they no longer love me…style…and that is a hard bit to do…

Jory is not “so worldly” my lamb…he is so
UN
worldly…that is why he has been stuck out front…we are the worldly ones who know enough to stay home & do our work…no matter what kind of fuel we tank up on…yes I know…but Jory is a blessing whenever I go over to N. Beach for a small kickin’ ball…Jory is always there ready to shield me…& because he’s being used nobody dares stop him from his love Sheri…sweetness.

when first we met…Jory didn’t know how to “see” me & of course there were too many people in this 1 room house…but one has had opportunity to speak alone with him & it was cool/

4/30 is a bad hour & one usually does smoke or drink at that hr…if one is an american…there is nothing here to do except make money & that is tabu except for the newly arrived…because we aint got none to begin with…

Had to go fight with my neighbors for a while…then fell asleep sort of now returned/

yes—paintings…have you ever seen the book gramps made for the awtis in italy? the La Martinelli book…give you some idee of what Jory sees in them…

a bar downstairs…how great—that is how one lived in wash., d.c. over in georgetown…at Julies…on M St by the Key Bridge…Jory drunk? that’s not good…he is too young to be drinking…altho’ I think his Wop blood will stand him in good stead…I think Jory told me he’s half Italian & he has an Italian beauty…plus something else…cd be germanic…something very straight & fine…& keen…donno…maybe Hinglish…Jory american…all right…I guess he foned you after the poetry reading I spoke about in last letter…Everyone else call her “hey Martinelli” or “La Martinelli” but Jory…he just says…in roomful people…“Sheri…please stay…I want to read some Bukowski to you…” and flips them all out…

Sheri stayed…Jory…when he feels…feels very deeply…& he thinks Buk is
TOP
…but Buk…he
is
the Light…he thinks it is all dark where he is…It is all a Star of King Solomon…if you fall to the bottom of one pyramid that lands you upon the top of the other pyramid…you just cant be bottom anywhere without being top…and middle…is never where we are…

Jory’s conversation…dear Buk…see it how it is…he is surrounded by people who teach him those things are important…but he worships you…believe me…I have seen his dark eyes talking about you—his fine clear unwavering look…that Jory is a good boy…yes got Payne correspondence…& answered…

now is time…to cook dinner…the day is gone now…it never did have any of Miles wretched sun in it…just a fine misty typical s.f. summer daye…Listen GreenEyes…be cool in that pad of yrs…it sound deeelightful…except the rats…there aren’t really any rats…iz they? no!

now I go & will mail this on way out tonight…is there anything in S.F. you need/want—will do if I can/ yr
father
really hang the Van Gogh show? must be ‘big shot’ type paw…to do that…who you really my dear Buk? cous? oh if you cd form that fire in you man/

mid august 1960,
Sunday nite
—
no, it is July

my v.d. Sheri M.:

sick today, but yr good letter n
she ri cantos
&
rochmony
on piano no radio, sun coming in upon me warm and quiet, I have climbed preety much out now. a fool running into teeth lately and it is good to have the lapse…I was drunk last night and started letter to Sheri M. but blacked out:

good thing I passed out, Sheri

Richardson no roturier but sometimes rotters easier to take because u already have map on them. good god, a child should have and would have realized that She Ri was not meant to be hamstrung across the ceiling and what was he
DOING
reading a dedication to
HIMSELF
? this is still basically bad taste, no change here, and to linger and dawdle and simper-taste praise of self, telling to audience, is end of all sickness and even the forgiving angels must have heaved but the devil held his red belly and laughed and gave Martinelli the hot pitchfork prongs and everybody but Richardson knowing what is happening. don’t make enemies, simply reajust your sights.

serbonian, serbonian.

Sherman I have once or twice started to give up on but just when I am ready he comes up with a letter,
entonic
, blazing from the shouls. If he could just get across some of himself into the poem without trying to be so god damned fancy like the rest of them. They all sit down and the first thing happens, big sign in mind:
I AM GOING TO WRITE A POEM. A POEM
. So they try to make it
sound
like a poem instead of simply falling across the paper. What is wrong? Can’t they see? It is simply like taking a rolled-up piece of paper and swatting a fly from the curtain.

morello, eyas, epinasty.

My
fly-spider pome
childhoodthing that shamed me for years, upsetting clockwork nature, and not equipped to accept. Something rong with me for years. When 7 or 8, group of boys yelling near bush, “Hey, this spider’s gonna eat a fly! Come on, come on!” Bukowski came on, all right, and kicked spider and fly out of web and crushed them both with shoe. But most amusing thing, now, (now only) the crowd of them yelling
angry, chasing me, all of them, little angry fists and faces, over fence, down alley, around block, but long-legged C.B. flying,
FLYING
, the deed all done, and they are way back there, slowing, hating, saying to each other
THAT SON OF A BITCH! AND THE SPIDER WAS JUST ABOUT TO EAT THE FLY
!

I am not big enough to accept the works of nature; I can only accept what it says inside: I don’t
like
it. And that’s good enough for me.

wurked once in a slaughterhouse, out they’d come, 2 minutes dead on hooks, cut as a rose away from leaf and root and 6am sun, and they’d swing it for me, one two 3 4, and on four they’d cut it down and down it’d come on the shoulder, a half steer, bones that once moved, blood, onehundred and forty pound, a dollar and a half a pound, nd up into the truck trying to hang the thing on a dull hook, press it down thru the fiber and fat and bone, onto the hook, and there it hung, mathematics, and back out for another one, big six feet 7 foot Negro behind you, cow on shoulder waiting and mad because you are no longer a kid, and tho strongest old man in Los Angeles, no match for 19 year old halfwits hoo wake with hards every morn.

But hell, I eat steak and am a spider too then but I do not forgive myself, but must have them
welldone
tho this does not change the sun.

Got Summer K[enyon]. Review in mail yesterday. Pretty good poem by Robt. Penn Warren and he ain’t always good. Anton Chekhov short story. I preferred Turgenev, prefer Tur to Check, and Dos to Tolstoy but all this is beside. Article on Graves, I have not read him too much, must try again. Dint like to read lately and Graves always appeared thick and winded-long, too much fat around the meat and when u are hanging to a drink a horses tail and a fat wrinkled woman for love that is old enough to be yr mother, Graves just lays like statistics. Irony and Absurdity in Avant-Garde Theatre. New York long ways off, and LA has only bunch of 19 year old highschool students on boards, queer, silly laughing, all really only wanting to be in Hoolywood than making a play go. Tho I saw a preety good O’Neill, actors good, but audience horrible, little Jewish neighborhood, talking to each other all during play, misunderstanding the lines, laughing when they should have been immersed, getting all the lines inside out, it was as if another
play had been written for the audience, and I stood outside with Fry at intermission and I asked her, do you like it? and she said, no, the central character is just like you, he talks just like you, demented, and I had to look around to see if you were in your seat or up on the stage.

Great God Brown
.

It was soon after that that we became divorced.

Now I hear she is writing Wang, wants to make him editor, sending photo thru mail. Wang I hear is nearer homo than milk and it would serve her right. They would make a hell of a pair: neither of them can think or write.

Fry beautiful in way but has little dishpan face and very vengeful. She has deformed neck, cannot turn head, and this is what brought me to her. I thought if I can make one person happy in this world then my life has not been wasted. A lot of it my fault and I failed and I will say no more.

getting away: I do not go to poetry readings or read my poetry and I try to avoid much of everything as there is much self-adulation and counter-praise and mingle mingle that is all beside the point.

your letters pomes to take away what needs to be taken away and it is odd that you and Sherman can do so much for me. I am saving yr stuff and maybe someday I can get somebody to put it out in book form and I will get rich and maybe go to China or India or Turkey or Africa or someplace where the sounds are strong, if I live that long…so keep writing, there’s hardly enough yet but you have crushed awful Pain for me and some other things, oh that Miles awful snake swallowing great gulps of pink rabbits and canned sunshine.

yes, unbearable to read his letter, made me sick all thru. dilletante babbling things that he thinks are right and feeling very safe backed up by his Beethovens and Shuberts and Bachs, as if we cannot have them because we do not turn his handsprings. Payne has read too much listened too much and never fallen back upon Self, but u are right, he means well but there is
no equipollence between his gods and himself, not even a shadow, and because he is not bad guy (he is a god damned cordelier, in fact), no real hatred or bile or what, it makes him that much harder to take. But one more awful letter like the last, let’s not think about it.

yes yes his “16 year-old boy caught in mid flight…spellbound by rush of emp. concerto…”

Why must they,
WHY MUST THEY SPOIL EVERYTHING EVERYTHING
, why is everything spoiled and soiled and pissed on? Remember in Frisco once, piano concerto, little Italian next to me tapping foot, oh
TAP TAP TAP TAP
, oh by god he was
ENJOYING
it miles payne style, tap tap tap, but I was sick tap tap tap, and the audience mad,
fatty Montier
, and clapping several times during the night before endings thinking pieces over. This ok on new works but on old standards—where do those people come from? And I met little tap tap coming down the stairs afterwards and I looked at him and he got the message and stood there stupidtransfixed holding to railing and then I walked out into the wonderful air.

u are rite to sense in Pound his greatness and I find u more and more rite, and I am glad.

Ginsburg all right at times but have been dispoint in his poetry lately and don’t know what’s wrong, what he’s gone and doing rong in his life and his typewriter but he has snuffled off, but maybe all temporary. Sem
corso ker
and others, what is
WRONG
?

When Warren puts them to shame, old as he is, it is time to tighten ranks.

Pound and
Jeffers
never weakened.

I probably did use the word “shit” in letter to him, tho this is not me, and he made big jump, and him saying me sitting there saying “shit, shit, shit” like old steam locomotive was unkind because he is trying to halter and lower me into something I am not, and this was low thrust. Also do not remember
knocking Bach or how I did it, the exactness or wordage or referent…I am speaking here of Miles again.