Beerspit Night and Cursing

by Charles Bukowski

  Card from Linick telling me some of my stuff will be read on radio. If they think they can ruin my fine villiany (spell?) with a few megocycles, they are pissing against the wrong tree.

  I’m not even gona listen. We’ve got to watch ourselves lest we become something else. The racetracks are bad enough, and it is only that I seek the freedome of leisure that I go there—to make enough to quit everything and flop down next to the cow and sun myself without worrying about the rent. And so it is we become trapped. I lose leisure seeking leisure, and it was Jeffers who said something like, There are traps for all men, and they say that God was trapped when he walked upon the earth. Jesus got hung, in the modern vernacular. And I am hanging myself everyday, but I am doing it alone and through action, and perhaps yet I will sneak through. But God, we lose a lot. Each day they cut off a chunk and you walk there with another piece missing, and pretty soon you’re dead like the rest of them, walking around dead and around and over the dead and through the dead and you walk and talk and write letters, but it’s just what’s left of a bad machine. Yet, I am aware of my dying and will not be fooled by the process.

  You are not dying, Shed; you are a perfect example of vibration with the Life-force, and you will always be beautiful and alive no matter how old you get—although (I am rushing here) beautiful is a lousy word, it, ya, has been used so much it is no longer beautiful but simply a poor vanilla flavor that dissolves with the spit of the tongue—a patooiee! I will not defile you with it, but do not have another word in my pocket right now.

  I’ve been going too strong. The mind, ya, is muddled, uooah so muddy!…all the people feet and faces tramping right on thro…The sing is, hell, I mean, the sign is on with me to build more than bleached bones of rat-gnaw for the casket, if I ever geta casket, nobody knows me, except a poor ol woman of fifty; I’ve orphaned myself out, but we Chermans don’t CRY, Shed, tho we may growl and strut, we don’t cry…

  Oye, I think on the WHITE SUPER, whozit, the lover of ariel Brahms, or what—San Diego joe whts his??? Oh, ya, Payne, think he’s gona blast you for letter you wrote, printing letter, and then blasting. But if I know Payne—he will hang himself because his stuff comes from the OUTSIDE and he is posing as an EDUCATED MACPISS CAT and all he will say is what HE THINKS IS CORRECT THROUGH THE EYES OF OTHERS AND THROUGH TRADITION…You may sometimes be wrong, Shed, but your kinda wrong and Ezra’s kinda wrong and Jeffers kinda wrong (Do!!! Read Tamar, Roan Stallion, Such Consoules misspelled! as You Have Given Me) I take rather than the practical rightness of the prigs. Don’t you worry what he scribbles bout you, the 6 or 7 living people in the world will know what the hell.

  Do especially read Roan Stallion. Robinson Jeffers. If you haven’t. Please do this for me. It’s the only thing I have ever asked of you! Isn’t it?

  Shit, I havnt slept for 3 days or nights, too many things to do, if this letta sounds thro slanted lite, please understand. An I’m not runnin’ around byin Xmas commerce either, don’t you think so now, and I noo yuu woodn’t Sheri, mah Goddess hoo has repoaced and replaced the word Buuty…

  Don’t allow any man to mock you. I would never. I do not fight you. You fight me, correct me. It is well.

  On your cat—toss his ass out. The Arabians admire the cat, look down upon women and dogs because they show affection and affection is, some think, a sign of weakness. Well, perhaps it is. I do not show too much. My wives and girlfriends complain because I hold my soul separately—and give my body, perhaps, puritanically; but back to the g.d. cat. A cat is only ITSELF. That is why when it gets the poor bird it won’t let go. This is a representative of the strong forces of LIFE that won’t let go. The cat is the beutiful devil. And here we can use the word, even without the “a”. You can get some dogs and some women to let go—and they’ll let go. But a cat, hell, the lightning sides of houses will long be done overt and he will still be purring in his milk. A cat will eat you when you die. No matter how long you’ve lived together. There was an old man once who died alone like Buk, and he dina have a woman but he hadda cat and he died it alone and it was days days days poor ol man began to stink, it not his fault, but the earth revolving and removing remains of what shoulda been buried by living earth spirits, and cat smelled good, to him, stink of dead meat, and when they found them the cat was clawing up from the floor, stuck to the bottom of the mattress like a rock, eating through the mattress, hung like a clam on the rock, and they couldn’t club him off or pry him off or burn him off, and they just hadda throw him off and away with the damned mattress. I suppose one moonlight nite through the dew of moon and leaves cooling the smell of death, he let go.

  There are no spirits or gods in a cat, don’t look for them, Shed. A cat is the picture of the eternal machinery, like the sea. You don’t pet the sea because it’s pretty but you pet a cat—why?—ONLY BECAUSE HE’LL LET YOU. And a cat never knows fear—finally—he only winds up into the spring of the sea and the rock, and even in a death-fight he does not think of anything except the majesty of darkness.

  yr Po Li Gib made me laugh talking about how Pan might fuck fast. I rather imagine Pan would. And then, Shed…maybe you wouldn’t wanna be interupted. Two r’s. Pan might be the best. I am not mocking you but talking straight. That’s why I tell you to read Roan Stallion, if you haven’t. The horse, he was more earth and God and real-eye thing than the pimple-paper man, and she took the horse and the horse killed him. It is a good long poem, and Jeffers meant it. And I say, I have seen many horses more noble than Man, n I say, by god, if a goatpoet incarnation grabs a holt a u, it’s best Po Li or Lie Po or anybuddy, take his time getting there.

  Don’t 8-ball know Laughlin, except one used to put out a new Directions or something but don’t know woman.

  Your good sister Webb—answering?—got a bad letter from 23 year old poet telling him off. Webb sent thing to me. Said who is this fucker, etc? I tried to buck Webb up by telling him in part where this fucker could possibly be wrong; but in process, I told Webb, it wasn’t good policy to print Webb Jr.

  Webb usta send a postcard a week. Since I told him about son, couple weeks back…silence from Webb. And so, the Good Mr. Webb and I have broken off, it seems. So?

  I understand Gramps wanting you to paint insteada AP. But Gramps shd understand if you A and P, you A and P, n when you’re gona paint your gona paint, and it isn’t MEASURING THE VALUE OF THINGS or labeling it WURK!! that’s gona help anybody…

  Still, the ole cob, you’ve got to listen to him: he’s always followed through to a lone line all he’s believed, as far as I know, and how many of us can do that? I mean, with bear-cat consistency. And yet it’s seeing through this bear-cat constny that limits his clear vision of other life-forms.

  But o, look, Shed, I’m going to lay down for 20 minutes. I’j jhesus ahm almost dead.

  So then.

  Love,

  Buk

  28/dec/60 pobx 46 san gregorio calif

  dear buk/

  yr beautiful xmas card/ you kroutheads are still superior/ best taste…very good idea/ how irreligious I am/ I moved the altar back/ impossible for any other agent/ no children here at that time/ no drunks on grounds no access/ we are on a 40 ft. cliff & the trees are on the edge of it…the small clump form a room & one had furniture given to one & put it all outside—& then the altar idea became clear…it is on the edge dropping down 40 feet with no path cleared—impossible in the dark to climb up but maybe Ernie cd—no I think it is steep at that place where something came up the cliffside & entered the altar under the tree branch where one can look out & see the ocean/ it had pushed the altar aside/ “the wind” said Gib but a wind strong enough to push a kitchen table away from a tree trunk almost as wide as the table therefore protecting it from the wind…wd also have blown off the small sacred objects on the table & the narcissis in the glass…everything had been overturned by the violence but nothing was blown off…Yes I know there are presences out there because of the way the cat goes crazy & one considered that the cat
in a crazy fit…but he’d have to be a jumpin’ son of a bitch to’ve done it/ I mean the only way wd be for him to jump up under it & fall sideways maybe…our house is the last one & nobody can pass us to go out to my ‘larches of Paradise’—it is 10 acres of wilderness impossible to cross 6 ft underbrush & tangle where rabbits live & on the other side is cliff—the brush goes all the way down to the road…i hear that melodic whistle sometimes at night—sometimes in the day. ernie is afraid of it/ me too.

  I oughtahave moved it/ I don’t know Buk/ if Pan’s back—he’d be able to take hold of a hollywood fairy psyche/ some of those hollywood people are of a high order of sensitivity—it is just that they are decayed and corrupt of spirit/ they’d pick it up from the aether…I count it a pecular co-incidence

  When Ezra was in his room writing: “you are tender as a marshmallow my love” I was in a car with David Treat & I suddenly touched my soft bozum—being so intelligent—I’ve never done it before in my life—the only time I realise I’m a female is when I’m impassionately in love…it was a strange thing for me to do & I said “why I’m tender as a marshmallow”…was of course astounded when Ezra handed me my poem with those words in/ It happened several times but I recall that clearest—have memory of it happening sev. times but wd have to re-check the correspondence of that time (1954)

  one has loved Pan since one was a skinny rip lying back by the bay at home—in the grass & soaking up sun & pretending he was there some where—it is the sound of his name & the sight of it that moves me to love…cant explain/ it happened with Isis spot’d as a kid in a newspaper/ When I grew up I found out who they were—the kid fell in love with the symbol/ that is its purpose—to be powerful enough to inspire love at first sight that it forever live/ mayhap I called Pan into being by my love & that ritual with Ernie was Pan—a r a m..a ram.a r a m.a.r a m.IK (Ernie said his Uncle said that on top of a mt. while he kept turning & looking) & Ernie was Pan—

  I am aware that Ernie is sacred—he found his way to me by a “spider’s thread” as Ez said I got to him—not knowing who he was or why he was there—

  yes I know we must watch ourselves but that don’t mean you cant change yr mind state does it? I am the same Sheri I was always but if you read the letters & works & art b.e. Before Ez & After Ez man! the change—he tuned me in clear & LOUD but it’s still me/

  you shd listen to yr own work being broadcast/ my word buk how can you be such a prot? humility means remaining human while you rise to the top but it dont mean not knowing where you are or why/ you cd at least tell ME when to list. dickhead! I’m sure you’d listen to any S.M. they’d dast broadcast/

  I yaint “beautiful” Buk—but I set like I am because beauty is a habit/ & Ezra’s bootin’ me outta the nest like that sure woke me up…I began to see that everything I’d done to him was being done by my contemporaries & they too thought of it as being their real me…it is the wailing of the yankee pupKitten & it is not the individual—of course we flavour our meeEEWW…it is a me—ow

  So from understanding compassion of what it might cost them because of what it had cost me—my castle in italy—& my art education because I see that they (the elders) wont let any me -owWWWWwers into the Temple I let go of her & seek to reach what I see is good out here/ darling there aint one night or morning that I don’t wail & moan & whine but I wont record it/ I am trying to set a model of something that I know if followed will lead my pretty ones to Paradise…but I doubt if I’ll ever get back in/ my manners were too local/ a hick/ a provincial/ oh god did god rub my nose in shit in san francisco—each & all presented themselves & did precisely before my disbelieving eyes—what I’d done to Ezra/ dumb as a worm I was/ I am only a perfect example of a good sister—that’s what a good sister wd go home & do if she flop’d & saw why/ I have since discovered that I myself dismiss some very good people because their manners are too bad to allow them in my paradise/

  I return from Paradise—had I gone to Italy with Ezra we’d have had some Paradisial Art…as it is we shall have a Paradisial Spirit

  I’m so mean & ornery I decided that to hell with them—I’m just gonna stay here in Hell & make my own paradise out of it…sort of like a weight to balance with theirs in europe

  that’s marvelous to be a Cherman all the way through—to have roots…it’s sort of sad to be a halfbreed but we are here & one will teach them how…I wish I were pure gaelic…but then I’d be all different & they are dumb as hell & cat’lik as a heathen

  I know old Educated McPiss Cat (denkyew duckder dotz goooddddddtttt) will hang himself—he is not aiming at the “most intelligent mind you know” “write for it”—his audience is local & in his mind he aims to them—by now my audience is international & not local & I know the difference…Dear Miles is a provincial hick right now but he has some good stuffing in him

  All right soon’s I finish this damm’d A & P will peruse Roan Stallion altho’ in NYC one almost got thru a Jeffers book but I like Ezra right now/ Ezra lives in the only world worth anything to me: the world of Merlin & Morgana le Fey…the magic world…where the rest see an old leather jacket but Ezra sees “the deer skin—sheri’s to sit on the deer skin” and Jeffers is in the bowels of life & so on but I’ll go to him again…He was sick when one was passing through or one wd have paid homage to him & one knew he was ‘dead’ by the tone of voice of the female/ Ezra wdn’t have anybody like that for too long…too active a mind—too curious…if that’d been a worldly figure instead of a local figure he’d have been in control sick or well/ this was a tone of voice that my mother’s aunt wd take if she ever thought I had any social security value…it was sad to me & I gave Jeffers up/ wdn’t write to him/

  Then he wrote: “I made my rock you go make yours” or more/less too fkn materialistic I thought/ I actually experienced a feeling of pain when I read that in Tommie Yee’s studio—the prick might at least have included some ground plans of his rock for us…Ezra did—Ezra gave us his time/ his life/ his love/ his heart/ his soul/ his magic…plus any known formula…he is my baby—I don’t care how mean he is…I wont fail him—it was necessary to hurt me almost to death—to make me want to do something…you’ve no idea how day-dreamy I am Buk & don’t give a damm for anything…just dreamily…floating…“cloud mind’d” he said

  I’m astonished that love of my contemporaries cd ever make me this practical—no idea HOW I get anything done…you see…I like to sit & talk to you & forget everything but somehow I keep going on with the job

  Darling thank you—for replacing the word beauty…it did fall off the stage for a while—when those clouds of demons rose up from hell…now I recall Who WAS wearing it dammit—I guess the Elizabethans—no it was Whistler & Yeats—then Ez taking embrage with the demons knocked beauty off the stage

  We do need beauty—I remember one brain-washer in NYC saying slyly “but don’t you think Botticelli is TOO beautiful?” god’s damm on him…If I’d have known I’d have said: “I don’t think Botticelli is TOO beautiful but I do think the International AND organised bankers are too powerful” or “too rich” or “too much in control of our finances…” ha! that’d floor’d him…but ignorance is such a handicap—maybe I’ll run into another “too beautiful” chappies again/

  Well I got to “fight” you because it is necessary Buk…Do you want me to let you go out in public with yr ass out? I got to fight/ males are so stupid they actually think they can learn from other males…oyyyyyyeeee I saw wot Ezra does to other males—they are his thanes once he gets them—he is THE MALE OF THE SCENE & he wont let nobody near him who wants to be the other male/ noppppppppe…It is the female alone who will aide you up…or the male help the female…I am intelligent because of the intelligent men in my life/ before that it was Pure Love & Peace On Earth & Goottt Willl to All with enough shyness to prevent her from getting murdered & so on/

  No Buk—cats are NOT independent…they are worse than dogs & the thing is they are sneakier & more persistent…I did toss his ass out/ he�
�s a good guy as a cat & obeys orders but he does persist & persist—still he recognises my FINAL tone & hops off my bed/desk or wotever/

  Buk please don’t tell me any horror stories about cats & corpses & so on—to me it is natural enough but I do not care to focus upon it/

  Oh Buk/ we do “pet the sea” & dear old Al has a distinct soul & so does Sea…by soul one means the Intelligence at Work/

  I doubt if I’d prefer a hoss to a man—because of communication thing & Jeffers just don’t know the Perfect Female…she dies without a male to love like a little fern she curls up inside herself—& the joint cd be jumpin’ & she’d dream on/ and Pan’s not an animal Buk he’s a deity! No lamb there is no more noble animal than man/ he is the only one who’d ever share anything—the rest of them incline towards hogery & what’s left goes to whoever…it wd be awful/ this fkn cat I see it in him—one observes it in low character’d humans but for nobility we must look to man/ not that the animals do not have nobility/ but not with food or water then’s when you see they are animals/

  Oh let Webb print his son’s work—why not? wait until you see new A & P…its policy is its entirely own my lamb/ But because one has a certain scandalous name she knows we’ll be read & Ezra’s mailing list considers her a Light…but my dear Buk/ we aint got nobody else’s policy/ ’s all right to print Webb jr/