Beerspit Night and Cursing

by Charles Bukowski

  If I am still around come next Feb.March, hope to come to Frisco for week or so. Should I disturb you? If not, I unnerstan’.

  Well, now going to open my beer. Ah.

  Sure, mama.

  love,

  Buk

  Los Angeles, Calif.

  Sept. 28, no 29, 1961

  Deah Shed:

  just a short one, and you needn’t respond…right off, only to say, no, don’t want tape back, I have a machine, a bad one, true, but if I feel like making more sounds, it’s there. I got it orig. to record some classical music, build a collection of sounds and what not, but since getting it, have done little. Your tape bad tape, tech. that is; Sears-Roebuck or what, and they have tendency to dry and split. Now have a couple a rolls of “mylar” which is tougher, like me. Writing this to say, due wat u wnt wit tape, but hope you got laugh.

  I am up to my ass in poems and correspondence, and what with working nights and playing the ponies and drinking too much beer, I can’t seem to keep up with everything, but more important is, there must be lulls of DOING NOTHING OR YOU DIE. This is important. Doing nothing is important because this is the glue that holds us: walking in the sun with things coming into the eye as it comes into the animal’s eye, or on the bed with the ceiling like a blanket, nothing else, this is the glue that holds us together. The busy BANG BANG BANG GO go go, that is Wall st. and erie tearing. Pure creation is ok, we all know that, no argument, but it’s easy to be tapped and trapped by a lot of things on the edge of creation. There is always this sense of loss, loss, the draining away brought on by the self, and when you add an intrusion, say, by Sherman or X, it is almost madness.

  Kaja in Paris. Did I mention? She has angel, prob. Corso, tho not sure, and not my business. Gal bit depressed, walkup to room 6 floors, no window, just room, but still Paris and this keeps her going. Paris is still the magic word in cities, but not to me. I know cities are people and I know people in a way so that cities are the same. But there is a light in Kaja, I say. A good woman. She makes the mistakes we all do, we who explore beyond ordinary edges. She speaks of bringing out some of my work bi-lingual, some excerpts from letters and a couple of new poems and a few old ones. Now here she is, upset and poor, lost in a tiny room, a gamble of some sort, all melancholy, the thrill of buying a cigarette package in French about gone, and she’s thinking about bringout somebody else’s work. A good childwoman.

  My 2nd. book still sitting at printers, in Pittsburg or somewhere, I think, but will out, sometime, I suppose. Also coming out in book with college prof., each of us taking about 20 pages wit pomes, only he funny college prof., cusses, and brags on me. This one might beat the other book out. Will send you both or all 3, or what the hell.

  Thank you for the invite. Will drive up about March ’62 but will let you know plenty time ahead about approx day arrival. I am gentle with people’s property and time and am old man who does not say much and likes to look at sun. Must sleep now, all things catching up with me. I can feel small poems beginning to build in my shoulders and wrists and belly, and they need rest to form. In and out of shadows, up and down; it has been bad lately. Good to hear again, princess, my love,

  Buk

  ps—Kaja at, in case you feel like writing: [address missing]

  [postcard dated by SM 16 October 1961]

  Dear Shed:

  just heard of death of H.D., and although her poetry did not signal as much to me as it did to you, my regrets, know she was yr friend, but, lo, she did leave us a mark, and very few do that.

  I must confess that I miss your letters but realize you have things to do which you consider more important than writing Bukslob. The news is thin: my x-wife has closed down her magazine, Sherman is back in Frisco, I am told, after robbing the man’s apartment who befriended him, it’s hot, my 2nd book still not out, drinking a little less, and that’s about it. You tried leaf oregano with your eggs yet, like I told you? I thought not! Babe, sometimes ya gotta listen to me, I cannot always be incorrect, can i? aw right,

  Buk

  Los Angeles, Calif.

  Late Oct. ’61

  Hello Princess:

  You prob got the Autumn Quicksilver I asked them to send you, you probably got it now and have read my poem Vegas, and I have an idea you will be (are) upset. It would have been easier for me not to let you see this poem, but that is the coward’s way out. First let me say that this poem was written long before the death of H.D., and second, it was written in a humorous way with no intent at insult. That’s all I can say.

  My second book is out now—just got a few in the mail today—Longshot Poems for Broke Players, and if I find that you are not angry I will mail you a copy right away. I did the drawing on the cover and a few for the inside, and most of my latest poems are in there. I don’t want to mail you a copy if you are just going to tear it up. Will wait to hear if you would like to see my head in a lion’s jaws or what.

  I think it fine that the H.D. issue reached her when it did; your sense of timing, of being there, was perfect.

  It is so sad when the good ones die…

  I liked very much the Pound poem for H.D., even though his mathematics are off. It is a thing of no small meaning that Ezra at his age still writes with the perfect ear and eye, where so many younger men, after a small fling at immortality have decayed.

  Your vision was a true one. I had a vision once when I was very young, I mean in my early 20’s. But no more. The gods have, perhaps, thrown me away.

  I am rather sick tonight. No need to go into why or what. Only I must slow down a little…

  Very good to hear from you, Shed.

  It’ll soon be March and you can cuss me to my face. Believe I will get about 3 weeks off but will only hang around a couple of days or so…don’t want to be a pest…and will spend remainder of vacation in L.A. Will also try not to show up on weekend as I know that is verbotten…But, then, I don’t know how we stand now. This Vegas poem may have done me in with you…

  Shed, I am rather sick really. Must stop.

  Glad you liked the leaf oregano with eggs. I must go now.

  love,

  Buk

  L.A.

  November 1961

  Shed:

  All right, I won’t visit you this March as you don’t wish it. And don’t worry, I won’t try to search you out. I don’t drop in where I am not invited—as your “gentleman” Ernie did on me! Talking about lawsuits, etc. How could you sue me? I don’t have anything.

  My old woman was not very impressed with your Ernie’s intelligence which he tried to strut all over the place. I had to tell him, for Christ’s sake, Ernie, put the textbook down!

  Well, I’ve met your lad now and I send him back.

  Indeed.

  “He tried so hard to act intelligent but he couldn’t make it,” said the old lady.

  The old lady said a mouthful.

  You missed the point of the Quicksilver poem. It was not to ruffle your hair or “expose you to the lower orders”; your part in the poem was only incidental and the letter might have been from anybody, the idea being that I was gnawing at the truckdriver, and the whole intent of the poem was humourous, not scandalous, and if you will take time to step down from that lofty damned perch you have built for yourself and give the poem an impartial reading you will be able to see this.

  Now, since you asked for the book, I am enclosing it and you can do what you please with it

  BURN

  TEAR IT, CURSE IT

  BURY IT

  throw it in with the rest of the rubbish, throw it to the sea, the birds, the ants, the wolves or

  GIVE THE FUCKING THING TO THE SALVATION ARMY. I don’t care.

  still,

  love,

  Buk

  9/nov/61 sm pobx 756 half moon calif

  DeaRRRRRRRRRR Bukowski:

  From mah lofty dammed perch which ah has built fo’ mahzelfffff ah dew notice (the air beingkkkkk clearer op here) that one l’l letter ob mine doth
cause yew to rage mo’n one l’l poem ob yrs did cause me.

  So much fo’ scientifikkk observation!

  iz 8/52 a.m. just got to frisco hotel room:

  now hold on kidttt—let us discuss March—the thing IS Buk that I don’t want to expose MY foibles to yr scrutiny IF I can help it—if you’d EVER get an eyeful of my PRIVATE essays as yet UNpublished & FAR more UNprintable than yrs you’d NOT want to expose yrself to MY scrutiny!

  Yr Lady correct—Ernie DOES “strut” being a bantam rooster & you too; he does haul in the “textbook” /// recordi that Ernie is a provincial; a rustic who knew nothing until he hit Frisco—it is EASIER to de-louse a Tong pawn from Columbia University than to de-hick Ernie. I hev tried with no success—but that don’t mitigate the fact that he saved my life when I’d lost face with my Mezzo-slant; Ernie is responsible for me being here as I had quit it Buk & I, therefore hold him dear & his native intelligence has not to date been matched except by E.P. WITH THIS EXCEPTION that Ernie has his racial roots to grow from & E.P. his & therein lies a worldtttt of difference which may or may not meet at some far point in Time/Destino

  dear old myoptic Buk—of course I REALISE that any reference to a girl/Pound was INCIDENTAL to der truckdriver & the lower class’s approach to the different BUT THE FACT REMAINS that yr 2 hens cackled & cackled & who was irritated was me; it AGRIVATED me but I take no umbrage because Mr. Hemmingway never did & set us a model/

  now to yr new publication///

  A little classic / 20th c/ & you ARE a genius & I weep to think of what YOU would be IF I could ‘edit’ some of yr stuff/// you spoil the all over effect by NOT being AWARE of yr gift/// now serenetas…or serenitas or howhell anyway—Let us view the world you & I—as a sort of “gold fish bowl” the Yin/Yang—it aint (space to draw it) flat

  It is more as EP told me “see it like a goldfish bowl”

  I CHOOSE TO REMAIN O U T SIDE OF IT…because one of us must & you choose to enter it & wiggle about & sculpt yr mountain sides with portraits of what’s jumpin’ off inside it

  specifics: re: The Day I Kicked a Bankroll out the Window

  1/ if yr “pinch the gray out of my hair…I’m 38” hair is gray @ 38 you NEED the b-complex vitamins which are easy to get…go to health store & order a tablet DISSICATED LIVER BREWERS YEAST PLUS LECITHIN & BONE MEAL & take 3 daily & yr hair will return to its natural colour within 6 months to I yr…anyhow a drinking man should know that alcohol robs body of its agility to use the b vitamins plus vitamin c/// all within reach dear boy. “but I’m different, baby, I can’t help it…” perfectly correct—you ARE the stuff O’Neill tried to get onto the stage…yr drawings unique & funny

  now I’m going to number the pages for sake of brevity beginning with State of World Affairs etc as page 1//

  p 1/ don’t exhibit yr genius enough—makes reader tired: jagged effect on total book

  p/2 & 3 [Hello, Willie Shoemaker] classic—yr genius at work

  p/4 [Candidate Middle of Left-Right Center] bores me—too hit or miss

  p/5 [Prayer for Broken-Handed Lovers] ditto

  p/6 & 7/8 & 9 [Poem for Personnel Managers] ragged

  p/10 [The Best Way to Get Famous Is to Run Away] a Buk classic

  p/11 [The Life of Borodin] Borodin incidental & yr hero worship lost on him—it is usually a mistake to kiss Gandhi’s ass & ignore our own heroes…but you will wallow in the Yin/Yang—nobody knows ANYthing about Vivaldi’s private life which IS a better model…my godwtttt the roohoooshuns wd dream of beating a donkey & spend all week weeping over the fact.

  p/12 [Parts of an Opera…] an attempt unresolved so far as clarity exists

  p/14 [To the Whore Who Took My Poems] a buk classic

  p/15 [Conversation in a Cheap Room] same

  p/16 & 17 [The Day I Kicked a Bankroll Away] a perfect portrait of the sort of female who will never be more than a person looking for cigarette butts in the gutter & not knowing how to smoke ’em/ also a good defense of the artist.

  p/18 [Where the Hell Would Chopin Be?] too personal to be a poem

  p/19 & 20 & 21 [What a Man I Was] a howler; a classic; a marvel; a satire; an american satire

  p/22 & 23 [The Sun Wields Mercy] cant read on through

  p/24 [The Loser] beauty//

  p/25 [The Japanese Wife] the Yawpandisease woife—for xts sake wot zentiment; man I seed dem…the bitches are totally commercial & I’m sick of the poor yiddish boys & the low white trash who get took by these business women…I am not for women who are professional women the way negroes are professional negroes & resent them as much as your resentment of college professorial critics or boets//etc etc

  THE AMERICAN WOMAN IS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL & BEST & GIVINGEST IN THIS WORLD IT IS TOO BAD THAT OUR ANCIENT ENEMY WHO NOW RULES HOLLYVODTTT HAS TAKEN OVER THE BITCH MALE AMERICAN MIND & PROPAGANDISES AGAINST US & THE ASSHOLES SWALLOW THE HOLLYWOODTTT SHIT WHOLE PLUS THE NEWSPAPER PROPAGANDA—o.k. so WE’LL MARRY ORIENTALS ***THEY KNOW HOW TO SUCCEED FOR US & FUCK YOU BITCHES TO THE BUGGERY HELL WHERE YOU BELONG & I am currently praying for a Yiddish Hitler to be rid of you boys—we’ll turn the race gold & you fuckfaces & fish eyes can whore yr ass off with yr YapanSlitherease broads/// damm you to ever lasting whore hell & rot yr dicks off in a crosseyed cunt/

  As soon as I turn Ernie into a Jewish Hitler I’m going to ARM HIM & like Napoleon I know how to [m]ow something down because I know what I’m AIMING AT.

  p/26-7 [Death Wants More Death] cant read//bores me

  p/28 [The Tragedy of the Leaves] no sympathy—a landlady deserves her rent whether you got screwed or not

  p/29 [When Hugo Wolf Went Mad—] a buk classic

  p/30 [The Ants] this is a beauty; the orientals wd understand (including Japanese wife)…it can be compared to Hung Tzu-ch’eng of the Ming Dynasty: “When a man leisurely looks at the flies hurtling against a paper screen, he may scornfully laugh at those idiots who make obstacles for themselves…” transl. by Dr. Chao Tze-chiang in A Chinese Garden of Serenity Peter Pauper Press Mt. Vernon N.Y.…& Chao that stinking-stockinged oriental fake Britt said snobbishly: “do YOU have time to look at flies”??? & I said “that’s ALL the time I got…” now thank gawd we have a poet who can look at ants & write a poem about it/// for which oye dank yew/

  p/32 [So Much for the Knifers…] a minor buk classic

  p/33 [Winter Comes in a Lot of Places in August] ditto

  p/34 & 35 [Bring Down the Beams] a buk classic & of course that kind of rage is what makes the genius & I know it perfectly//

  & 36 [Letter from the North] is more than a classic; it can be compared to Basil Bunting’s transl. of Chomei at Toyama (Kamo-no-Chomei born at Kamo 1154 died at Toyama on Mt Hino 24th June 1216)

  “I am out of place in the capital

  people take me for a beggar,

  as you would be out of place in this sort of life,

  you are so—I regret it—so welded to your vulgarity…”

  & much more that’s pertinent but I got so much work today that I got to short cut this…but Letter from the North in title & poem are sheer Bukowski PERFECTION & poor Jory caught midtt his arse outdttt & pin’d down like a grub.

  p/37 [Riot] a buk classic

  38 & 39 [Truth’s a Hell of a Word] cant read on through

  I found yr p 40 & 41 [CB’s autobiographical note] too much like a Henry Miller casual toss off but then I simply cant get you out of the Yin/Yang Buk…All in all I am proud of receiving yr book because it is literature—not classical but a classic…now encl. is $2. please send me 2 more—or better you mail out from there:

  · 1962 ·

  June wonsix2

  Ya, Sheeriiie:

  it appears yr letter was mainly to see the pome I wrote about you I wrote about pound I worked at something but it is plainly to be seen now that the pome is gon I have destroyed it my better judgment saying do so it is a bad poem even if it is dedicated to Martin[elli] and so I tore it and tore it and therefore I cannot enclose it even if I wanted to.
if I recall it was not a rough pome almost a pleasant poem and not a long pome and it was almost a love poem and it said Sheri, Pound is old and although i am old i am not that old and I am not Pound but I am Buk which is not as good but it is still light dark light and Pound is in Italy and Pound is old and I am in Los Angeles and I am not so old and so therefore why do we not reach an approximation of love. that is about what I said in the poem. the people said it was well written but too personal and I said it was not well written and not even personal at all, that is was almost laughing without meaning it, but the thing in me said anyhow it is a bad poem so I tore it.

  Yes, somebody put a wire in the Outsider man Webb and this jazz thing came out which does not reach me at all and which may be my fault, but I have given jazz chance after chance just like a bad whore, but it continues to lie to me. jazz, the essence of it is too thin, too flat; it rests and tickles on the mind, it draws out the weak and simple area of the mind. Jazz deflates. jazz is flesh without backbone. I would rather go to hell on a donkey.

  I prefer certain classical pieces, both ancient and modern, that have not been overplayed until here too all essence is lost in hackneyed repetiveness.

  Jory is in L.A. now. He knocked on door and found me in bed resting, waiting to go to track. I do wish these people would at least phone. I gave him a beer and went down to the mailbox: yr letter and another. I read them and put them in my pocket. Who? he asked. Sheri and somebody, I said. Is Sheri in San Francisco? I guess so, I said. I am on some kind of bonded word not to expose her whereabouts but I don’t know her whereabouts anyhow. Will you tell her, asked Sherman, that I will be in San Francisco the second week in June? All right, I said, I will tell her.

  You are hereby told. I gave him 5 dollars and he left. He is MAKING IT here in L.A. The ladies love the boy but I think he is looking for a mother. Or a father. I made a note that that would be the last of the money from me to him. I have starved in cardboard shacks and on park benches and never asked a dime. But this is bitching. I do not like myself when I bitch or compare. I usually do not like myself anyhow, and this only makes it worse. Enough.