February [?5], 1972
got your damn good letter, it was a laugher.
meanwhile, one of the sisters got down on me because I didn’t accept her writing or her as a mighty good thing and she screamed and screamed, many things, like, “my children are my novels,” and so forth, then she railed against my writing. I got on out. she’s 41, never been published. well, that’s all right; but even if she were published I’d still think she was a bad writer. well, so I left early. back here. Linda looking for a place—2 children and a dog. not easy. we are jammed in here. can’t walk around. no way to write. well, man, it’s all for the good of the fire. [***]
I’ll try to get the City Lights book to you when it comes out. I do think the stories fouler (better) than Notes of a D. O. Man. Instead of calling it Bukowskiana (not my idea), I have retitled it Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions and General Tales of Ordinary Madness. At the printer’s now, says L.F. He calls it a great book. I agree. I don’t think that since Artaud or Nietzsche there has been anybody as joyfully mad as I am. well.
well, this is just to let you know the bare things & that I am alive and your letters are always a pleasure, works of Art, my friend, and yes, I know how it must be with the ladies, we must give them all the extras of tongue and touch, because that’s a creation too, making a lady truly hot, and, at the same time we must get away from them long enough to create…I think the man who said, The strongest men are the most alone, was right.* I suppose I will have to get back to that. Even though I believe I love Linda. We tear ourselves apart for the typewriter, for those one or 2 lines. and it’s worth it…
The book being referred to in the following is Mockingbird, Wish Me Luck, published June 1972.
[To John Martin]
February 6, 1972
[***] I’ve done ten of the drawings for our book of poems. I don’t say much about it but each time a book comes out I get just as excited as the first time. I don’t suppose this is very professional, but isn’t this what it’s about? I mean, a book, a tabulation? it makes it much easier to die, somehow, except you don’t want to die because you want to do more. getting published in the magazines doesn’t raise up much in me, but a book is holy [sic] another matter. I have a feeling that this book of poems will be the best. I warm up all through the arms and chest and belly thinking about it.
[***] this is a difficult life—because I am more open to things that happen—but compared to the Post Office and the hundred other jobs, it’s life lighting up near the end, and it’s worth it all—the gamble, the doubt; at least when I get my lazy ass up and at it, my energy is going where my feelings are, and there’s no way of short-selling a value like that. Cheer up, Sparrow. [***]
A. D. Winans edited Second Coming magazine from 1972 onward.
[To A. D. Winans]
February 16, 1972
Yes, thanks for copy of Second Coming. I had a second coming myself the other night, which is fairly fair for my age. Re: your Second Coming, I thought the content all right but too much emphasis on prose. I like a balance between prose and poetry, plus one or 2 very nasty reviews of life, books or anything. As much as we look down on the academy, I always remember the old days, coming off the park benches and into the libraries and reading those very phoney yet bitchingly beautiful reviews in the old Kenyon Review. But never mind all that. [***]
An Anthology of L.A. Poets, edited by Bukowski, Neeli Cherry, and Paul Vangelisti, was published by Laugh Literary in 1972.
[To John Martin]
March 14, 1972
[***] Neeli, Paul and I are going to put out An Anthology of L.A. Poets. I think it has long been needed. This town has been smeared long enough both as a place to live and a place to create. Of course, it does have Hollywood attached to it but L.A. needn’t be a Siamese twin. Many people live here and ignore Hollywood, Disneyland and the L.A. Dodgers completely and also Alvera street and Broadway and Hill and the Rose Parade and the Santa Claus Parade. L.A. is really still the Grand Central Market and Alvarado st. and Main st. and E. 5th and E. L.A. Watts is fairly Hollywood. Watts has been tricked. But may bounce back. [***]
[To John Martin]
March 31, 1972
[***] Regarding your phone call, I have some down moments but I don’t think I’m about to go just yet, especially if I stay away from the whiskey. You know, the writing must come out of the living, the reaction to living. If I get a little scorched now and then, it’s all for the good of the barbecue. And when the leisure time is needed in order to get it down, that time is there and I think it makes the writing solider. Forgive me if it doesn’t.
On Linda, it has to end sooner or later. In 9 more years she’ll be 40 years old. I just can’t tolerate them thar old women, dude. [***]
[To Carl Weissner]
June [?20], 1972
[***] The sculptress and I split. She went back to her hometown in Utah. But there seem to be a great many long distance calls and letters going back and forth between us. I didn’t wait long. I jumped right into bed with a 43 years old gal who is president of some record company. My personality isn’t very good but I throw good fucks for a 52 year old guy. “You just couldn’t wait,” says the sculptress, “you just had to go jump into bed!” “But, baby, I thought…”
The new one is very kind and says she loves me but it just doesn’t seem the same as the other one, it just ain’t, and I don’t know what the hell. The sculptress phoned and I was going up to Utah and then the new one heard and swallowed a handful of sleeping pills. I stuck my fingers down her throat and made her vomit, and called the trip off. I am caught in between all this. And there’s no solving it, it will never be solved. [***]
remember when you came to the U.S. and I couldn’t pick you up at the airport? I became stricken? airports and space were beyond me, I hope you understand. since then I’ve flown a dozen times and I bounce in and out of space ports like a human flea. too bad I wasn’t ready for you. I grow so slowly. Sorry.
I truly don’t understand the ladies, Carl. They seem to exert terrific pressures while asking a kind of freedom of their own. I am puzzled beyond puzzlement. Any clues? My problem is that I seem to care too much. How the hell can I get out of that?
[To Lafayette Young]
June 25, 1972
Thanks plenty for the clothes for Marina. I’m going to see her the monday from next and you just don’t know how happy she’ll be with them. She doesn’t have much to wear, I suppose I should do better, but anyhow the clothes and purses, all that great stuff will be put to a mighty use: to make a beautiful little girl more beautiful. thank you, friend.
the human race? god jesus, save us from it, somehow. I hang in and wait to die. just got off a bad experience—16 months—with a woman. trying to put myself together again. I’m now with another. it’s gentler but hardly as stimulating. well, it’s a day at a time, and it has never been easy.
hang in.
William J. Robson edited and published Holy Doors: an Anthology of Poetry, Prose, and Criticism from Long Beach, California (1972). He had previously, in 1970, published Looking for the Giants: an interview with Charles Bukowski.
[To Bill Robson]
July 11, 1972
Now that Richmond and Fox have me down as failing, a liar, a sell-out, so forth, it’s curious that you still want to hear from me. Don’t you believe them? Don’t you realize that I am a ruined man? That I have forsaken the truth, all that shit? I don’t know how to answer these boys. They both seem to be staking a claim as real writers, overlooked, for this reason or that. Whatever the grounds of their bitching wails, I only ask that you measure the totality of all my work against theirs and make a judgment.
Poor Fox. He claims Black Sparrow published me because I was “known” and didn’t publish him because he was “unknown.” He claims the quality of his work had nothing to do with it. I have no idea of John Martin’s worded rejection of the Fox manuscript. It was probably kindly-worded and Fox read into it what he wanted to re
ad into it. The real fact was that the poetry probably was simply bad stuff.
This bit about the “known” and the “unknown” is ridiculous. No writer is born “known.” They don’t know us in our cradle, or in our rompers or in our schoolyards. We have to become “known.” And if a writer remains “unknown” long enough there’s usually a good reason for it.
Fox and Richmond seem to think I have “sold out” because I make my living with my typewriter. I have even labeled myself “a literary hustler,” but where is their sense of humor? The story in Rogue was not crap or some cheap little bullshit formula story for a buck, as Fox might say. He might read the story again. He likens me to the prof in Blue Angel, egg broken over head…Christ, these little snippets, these tiny little quarter talents…they really want to do me in…They know that my work is better than ever and that I am getting paid for it, and that’s their attack—I make the money writing: therefore the writing must be a sell-out.
Fox from his professorial post advises writers to go get a job and write on the side. I’ve had a hundred jobs and I wrote on the side. I worked until I was 50 in the most slave-labor and demeaning jobs imaginable. That doesn’t create literature; it only tires your ass out. Fox chirps to his students and Richmond lays in the sun outside his beach cottage, claiming to be worth only $300. All I say is that the real ARENA is CREATION. Let them get into that arena instead of bitching like neurotic housewives over the backyard fence. I’m afraid that the small presses, the mimeo presses have kept alive too many talentless darlings, and have made life difficult for their wives, their children, their girlfriends.
I don’t believe that in getting paid for what you do, that being a professional, necessarily detracts from your art. It may detract from yours, it doesn’t from mine. Many people get paid for what they do. And they do all right. Starvation and obscurity are not necessarily signs of genius.
Let Time itself answer the attacks on me by Richmond and Fox. As for me, I’ve wasted enough time on them. Oh, my little friends, how you cry and weep and bawl and puke and slobber over yourselves. May I suggest that you use more of your energy on what you pretend is your craft—that is: writing. There seems room for improvement. Some day you may be men.
[To Patricia Connell]
July 31, 1972
Hello Patricia Connell:
Thanks for your letter. Very interesting stationery. Too bad you didn’t come along with it. It’s not every day that this dirty old man hears from an airline stewardess—though most of them piss me off for one reason or another when I ride them, or rather, their plane. I suppose it’s because they’re all so god damned casual. If only one of them would break a leg some day or drop a uterus. Still, I suppose somebody does read my column and/or my books. I’m largely underground with a red nose from drinking beer and I’ll be 52 in August, the 16th. That doesn’t leave much left over. I just broke off with a 31 year old girl, a looker, 16 mad screaming months, and I’ve told Liza not to love me. There. Tah tah taha.
If your pilots tend to go my stuff, there’s a large jumbo collection of my stories just out, Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions and General Tales of Ordinary Madness. It goes for $3.95 via City Lights. [***]
[To Patricia Connell]
August 3, 1972
So you’re 27 years old! I’m just mad about young women, they drive me ape, completely out of context and/or reality, but I don’t give a damn. Don’t know if I’ve mentioned but I just got over a 16 month affair with a 31 year old sculptress. We fucked and sucked and loved and slept together, ate breakfast together, lunch together, everything together—fighting, mortally wounded, she was a Carmen, that one, beautiful and cruel, a flirt, a vamp. a woman, a most wondrous woman. She finally ran off to Utah when I walked out on her once too often. With Liza I’m honest, I tell her, don’t love me, please don’t love me…
I’d like to come see you—you haven’t invited me—but my dear old 62 Comet needs a bit of repair work…Manhattan Beach?—that’s where my wife split when she divorced me—she was a millionairess—I married her through the mail—sight unseen—when she kept writing that no man would ever marry her—there was something wrong with her neck—she couldn’t turn her neck—I said, kid, I got scars all over me, I look like a punchboard, I’ll marry you—she was all right, for a while, until she knew I didn’t love her. Manhattan Beach. That’s it. Yes.
I hesitate to phone. Phone conversations are difficult. Just think how we’d look together? I could pose as your father. Until we got to bed. I do all right in bed. Not that I’m exceptionally hung but I go down on that thing with some artistry and believe in the long ride…. Is this what you’d call shooting the shit? I know that most men who claim to be great lovers are nothing but on and off jackrabbits. Listen, how did we get into all this sex bit?
I worked most of my life on dull labor jobs but 2 years ago quit and layed it all on the typewriter. I’m not getting rich but I’m still alive. 7 year old daughter in Santa Monica. I volunteer 45 bucks a month child support. I like lobster, beer, and occasional racetrack (computer data?), young women, especially those around 27 with a job dishing out those two drinks in the sky. I am emotional and kind and ride around in a big tank so people won’t stick pins into me. The sculptress said, I don’t think I ever met a guy with a line like yours. And Liza says, “I never met a man who made better love.” So there you have it, plus and minus. I don’t think I have a line. Well.
I don’t expect you to like all my writing—prose or poetry. No matter what you do. some people are going to like it, some are going to dislike it, and the vast majority aren’t going to give a damn one way or the other. [***]
The man-woman relationship is fraught with pain and glory and warmth and wonderment. It’s certainly worth the trip. I’ve liked your letters, they show insight. I’d like to see you some time. For all my talk, I’m very slow. I don’t like to rush. I don’t want to get into anything that I don’t want to stay in for some time. I’m sentimental as all shit. It’s my nature. I’m tough too. I can be a son of a bitch when I have to be and sometimes I have to be.
Save these letters. They’re worth money. You may need money some day, dear, when people stop flying United and fly angels. I’m really not a male chauv. pig. Be good, Patricia.
Bukowski (fly me!)
[To Patricia Connell]
August 8, 1972
You’re right—there’s a lot of self-destruct in my relationships…The sculptress and I practically lived together—but there seemed two violent whirling flaming battles a week—break-up, make-up—it was vibrant enough and the love was great and the sex was great, and when it was all going well you couldn’t beat it—but…Now with Liza there are hardly any arguments, it’s all very smooth, but, at least from my viewpoint, it’s not the grand flame…so I asked her not to love me. The sculptress was coming back to me from Utah once or twice and Liza acted up quite badly—I won’t go into details but it was a mess, and I don’t want to see her get that way again. Oh, I’m capable of love, my child, I’ve been in love twice in 52 years. I didn’t love the sculptress but now I realize that something in our personalities will never leave us at peace. so I had to tell her that I had given up on our relationship. That’s the package.
Oh, I’m Buk, not Buck. Pronounced Buke.
Ah, the seriousness of old age, you say. Well, I don’t know. A certain lady says that no man has made love to her like I do. I’m the best of the bloody lot, and she’s known hundreds. I can’t help taking some pride in that statement. I intend to live until 80 and to ball until 80 and to go down until 80, and if this seems crude, so be it.
It was good talking to you on the phone. I liked your voice and you had an easy manner, you made me feel comfortable.
Yes, I’d like to have a beer with you some time. We needn’t make a large thing of it. I don’t believe in trapping people or chasing them down, or vice versa. Also, there’s no rush, although I have to leave town in Sept. a couple of times for poetry readings—o
ne for Ferlinghetti at S.F. and one at the Univ. of Arizona. Meanwhile my poor car is getting a blood transfusion. Somehow it feels good to hear from you and to rather be in touch. I hope to hear something from you, and to eventually set up our famous meeting over a beer…Size? I’m 5’ 11” and 3/4’s, 210 pounds. I’m Leo. Like beer, boxing matches, horse races; like to drive women crazy on the lovebed. Or so says the computer. I’ll always try to fly United, so help me, little one. I’m influenced by Celine, Dostoevski, Kafka, classical music, myself, the miracle of the female and the general weathers of life. Hell, write me when the mood moves ye.
[To Patricia Connell]
August 11, 1972
Oh, Post Office. I wrote that in twenty drunken nights on scotch and cigars. Don’t expect too much.
I phoned the sculptress last night on a lark. She’s moving back to town in Sept. “I’m not coming to you, Bukowski. I’m going to think of all the evil things you did to me. A week before I come back I’m going to get some guy to fuck me for a week so I won’t need you.”
Well, the female is a clever creature. She knows how to regulate her affairs. Most often it is the man who falls apart; it’s the man who jumps off the bridge. When we give over our feelings they run off with us. There’s no regulating them. I give over my feelings too easily, and it’s not all relegated to suck and fuck (as the sculptress calls it). I get as much, or more, out of the other parts. Small talk. Breakfast together. Sleeping while touching. Waiting while the other goes to the toilet. Love-making after a stupid argument. Drinking beer with maddened friends. Hundreds of tiny things. I am never bored when I am with my woman. I get bored in large formless crowds. Bored, hell, I get desperate, I lather and blather at the mouth, my eyes roll, the sky shakes. What am I talking about here?
Living on Luck Page 14