Beerspit Night and Cursing

by Charles Bukowski

  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.

  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 n
ot 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.