Beerspit Night and Cursing (21 page)

Yes, my foreigners are good for me. They are so simple, so simple and good. It is not in my presence to snoop. But my third floor window looks down upon them, and I am glad it does. The girl, the girl she is beautiful and she does not
know
it, yet, but someday a young half-bull with shiny shoes will mew and slobber over her and she will be done. A girl like that needs a bull. To keep her simple and never let her know.

They still have their xmas tree up. Last year it was Feb. before they threw it out, and I too was sad when I saw it by the trash can, the dead branches and tinfoil in the sick Hollywood sun. They need an altar but do not know it.

…
LOOK
, we can’t
WORRY BOUT
what it will
MATTER
in 2 thousand years just because we’re going to have to sack out. Today is important because today is 2 thousand years from
now. Right now. And 2 thousand years from now will be today. You know all this. More basics. I am not good at this 4 p.M.

The trouble with shaking Ernie from abstracts to classics, is, of course, that
you
are doing the shaking. May I say that he will have to shake himself?

The trouble with Payne is that he wants to be dominant but is not really dominant at all, but a borrower. Still, yes, he is better than the average man you will pass on the sidewalk. For it all, let’s give him a nod. He
did
scratch at Gramps, but this seems to be getting to be a popular pastime and I think it’s about time somebody went the other way around. Gramps is there and there is not much we can do with him. HE does with
us
. I always knew Pound was strong and there is a certain sense of this strength in me, although not the talent. But I admired the strength. It was like a dog smelling another dog’s asshole, spiritually. And for the ten years I did not write, I also lived another 7 of those years with a woman who was also very strong in
HER
way. And I was the fool, drunk, drunk, drunk, throwing full glasses of whiskey against the walls (and I drank my whiskey in tall waterglasses, no water) and I’d curse and
PUT ON
but only put on to make sound like a man on stage in a very dull time, and I’d fall to the rug unable to walk anymore, but still the world dancing, and I’d holler at my woman from the dust of the rug: “God damn it, I am a
GENIUS
, don’t you understand? Don’t you know what a
GENIUS
iz? Hell,
LOOK
at me!
LOOK! LOOK! LOOK
!!!!!”

“Yeah,” she’d say from her spot on the couch, those beautiful nylon legs and spikes, “you and your god damned Ezra Pound.”

“And your Whit Burnett. And ya know what they did to Whit Burnett, don’t you?
They LOCKED
him up!!! But Whit had
your
number! I’ll never forget what he once told you: “
ALL YOUR PEOPLE SEEM TO DIE IN THEIR OWN EXCRETIA
!’”

I am afraid both Whit, and that lady, had my number.

Something by Handel on radio now. Believe he was German Jewish, I could look it up. The German-Jewish is an unfortunate strain because they are two direct causes working in one person, one against the other. Hitler and Muss realized this. I am not political, but I will admit actualities, or what I believe to be actualities, to myself. But as Neitz said, “Give me a German stallion and a Jewish mare!” Well, that makes a terrific bed
piece, but the child-to-be-born is in for a set of fits. I may be incorrect about Handel’s Jewish strain, but still, it was somebody. Doesn’t matter. I have the books about thirteen ft away. Indolent.

Gib shows great strength for his youth which can not be laid off entirely to the Chinese race. However, it is difficult for me to understand the young; although there is a certain majesty and force that some attempt to claim with Age, although their only weakness was lacking the guts to die. Age, by itself, is useless: so many of our trees grow crooked.

When I say Em is son of Got, I mean Jesus was Jewish and Jesus was the son of Got, or so the fable goes. When I said Em was son of Got, I meant in formula sense and not in essence.

Everything is not hopeless and useless. Sometimes you meet a basically sound person completely webbed in. It is an admirable experience. And the best thing about these “rare ones” as I like to think of them, is that they do not
WRITE
or
PAINT
or postulate, they are simply ripped and walking on,
AWARE
. You can’t find too many of these, but they rate far above the Shermans, the Webbs, the Paynes.

You are, I can see by your letter, in low spirit today. You go get your sun. Even get burned a little. But, Shed, you aren’t any “flop”. That is the first time you ever hurt me, talking like that. You are Sappho 1961, and just because nobody or no one tells you this, you keep climbing your walls and your cats and your Buks,

we are with you, alla us
crapas,,

      LOVE,

Buk

[
handwritten:
] p.s.—Lost pen again. Article u sent enclosed. Hope so.

L.A.,
mid Jan. 1961

Oye, “Whiskus”:

Your abstract-letter Emie,—I guess it can be bitter. You dedicate Ern with imaginaries (some anyhow) when he is near, but distance breaks the spell. Still, Gib’s right: go easy; you measure us all in a Poundian-shadow.

The difference between being subtle and abstract is the difference between knowing and saying it in a gentler way and not knowing and saying it in a way that will let you off the hook. To be abstract with the word is all right if you use it like paint and seek the
pure
word, but it is difficult, in the language, to have near purity without near meaning.

I am eating cooked shrimp and green onions and drinking beer as I write this, so it is very enjoyable; but I could not write a poem this way. If the paper gets greasy, you’ll know why.

Headline of
Kennedy
speech:
I DO NOT SHRINK FROM THIS RESPONSIBILITY
. Is he
SUPPOSED TO
?

And Frost out there blubbering his poem, blind and white in the snow. Jory-Shermanizing himself. I’d like to see them catch Jeffers on that hook. No, they couldn’t. Not enough bait.

IT’S NICE TO KNOW WHAT TIME IT IS, EVEN WHEN YOU ARE LATE
.

Got a letter from a
prof in the English dept.
of Louisiana State University: “…have finally made up our minds that you are one of the two men working today whose poetry may last a long long time.”

Some other things said. One strength of his is that he is not at all swayed by the University Poets.

However, they are sure baiting the hook for me, trying to get me fathead and sure and dull. I answered Mr. Corrington
and told him that a man can go to bed being a poet on Wednesday night and awaken on Thurs. morn and not be a poet at all. You can’t credit a future in an insensitive and desperate world that can make blathering and blubbering idiots outa

Hems and Faulks,
Millers kissing Monroe
hems

Barrymore
, fat and dull as a hog, not even saved by his whiskey, stamping all over Hamlet to the delight

of a radio-fat audience; Wilde getting punchier and queerier

and dearier; Tschaikovsky living with an insane women in an

attempt

through marriage to prove he was not homo; Dostoievsky at the

roulette

wheel or bearded, raping a child; what the hell, well well well:

Dos Passos and Koestler
making adjustments to the weakening

of the

communist cause in U.S. due to war and end of depression and

general

tiring of enthusiasm of people who expect things to jell all at

once.

[
handwritten in margin:
] the dead and the living mixed here, I realize.

Oh, on the “making up of minds”…this was not L. State U. but Mr. C and his wife’s. Without playing big mr. modest I would guess that both Mr. and Mrs. are in their twenties. Early enthusiasms can lead to pregnancy and miscarriage.

What is this
Nora
? You’d better work on her. She seems the weakest member of your tribe. Or send her down, and if she’s bween 11 and 61, I’ll make love to her. I guess she’s reading the fancy mags trying to get fancy. But the triers are stuck in the tar-pits.

THOSE WHO DON’T TRY MAKE IT ANYHOW BECAUSE THEY ARE RELAXED ENOUGH TO SEE
.

Gib’s ok, I can sense that,

but ahm glad he didn’t write, I have so few hours,

playing the ponies,

and an occasional turn on the springs,

and the black bat of doubt flapping his wings

throughout my small sleep…

Gib’s.

      awright

          but right now

I’m timed down to the last tick,

and one more mind

good as it might be

could break the back of my thinking,

and by thinking I don’t mean strain

but I mean growing, as the leaves, better every morning,—

green for brown and wither,

the water beer sunlight

eyow!:

singing songs sometimes.

I am not a cool pops…But do not remember my “armada” over yr cliffs…

The problem is not to “conquer loneliness” but the weakness of self that imagines the world is something else…and better…in the crowd.

I am never bothered with loneliness. I am sorry, but it is so.

Must Ez throw you over finally? Without a say of whyfore and whatn hell or where? I could do this with another poet but not with a lady who knew my smile.

I think I am a little different than Pound because I can feel “left out” and it does not fk hurt me. I realize that the critical and spiritual world that is cannot possibly be enough if I am burning my fire correctly. If they can see me
NOW
what the hell are they going to see next Tuesday morning when they tire of the obvious?

Of course, I realize that all women are not sacred. Did I infer this? I held down the same corner barstool in a Philly bar
for 5 years. And yet ah I found a lot of the sacred cows going to bed with the pretense-bulls every night…These were good women and they were sorry for me and they laughed at me, which was more than the stale neighborhood women with their stale husbands could do.

C. Day Lewis in the Sat. Ev. Post
explaining to the crowd how poetry is written. Charles McCarthy Lewis sitting on the knee of the mob.

Jory Sherman on my telephone phoning editors and writers:

“This is Jory Sherman. I just got into town. I’m over at Charles Bukowski’s…”(This some months back but I have not forgotten.)

I don’t know about Cl. Major. He accepted some stuff of mine once and then heard through the grapevine that I was a son of a bitch, so he returned it. Then much later came a rather abject letter of apology, asking to see more of my work. So I sent him some more and he took it, only this time he had to return it because his mag had folded. His wife divorced him or something. And before this, a great long letter to
Trace
stating that anybody could and
SHOULD
publish a literary magazine. It seems to me that Major is stumbling all over his feet in every direction in an attempt to get there. He’s in heavy with Wang and they build each other up, meanwhile quabbling over “White-supremacy” to give them a bit of cud to chew about.

The “grapevine”, meanwhile, that told Major I wasn't any good, has accepted 3 of my poems.

It’s a mess. These boys get stuck in the tars and jellies. And they too would be glad to read a patriotic poem at inauguration, or
Saturday Evening
Post the public. No wonder I look up to Jeffers.

Tired this morning. Must really stop. Shrimp and onions gone, will pursue the beer.

oke,

Buk

Frost said, “The deed of gift was the deed of many wars.” Poetic blather. This country won some struggles for
POWER
. Why dress it up in Sunday clothes?

Buk

Jan. 20 ’61
[
postcard
]

Dear Sheri—

rec. yr good letter, answering Sunday.

No, can’t anger on your opinion of D. Thomas because when I read him I very often get an odd feeling that all is not well. But when I found out he drank himself to death, his stock went up with me—which is not a reasonable or sensible surmise of poetic talent, I’ll agree.

…it is possible that Jory writes because he wants to be famous and not because he wants to write.

This is (wuz) one of your best letters. I think it’s good for you up there, away from the crowd. You and cat on mantle, in front of the clock, and the vines are climbing in my brain.

sure,

Buk

1/30/61
[
handwritten postcard
]

Dear Sheri:

Read
A and P
in one sitting. Much good; you deserve an angel if he would not spoil you…
Murakami
has a good purity,
and yet sees pretty straight. Richer stretches the point. On Major I get the feeling (in his poetry) that not everything happens to him that he claims…Po’ Li knows what the hell’s happening, Gumbiner is too bright for me. Sherman just wrote another “poemy” poem. Sam L. Lewis poem perfect without pretense, American Education, yes, a good picture. E.P. Walker much better in “Sheri” than in his poetry….and you scratched
Norman and Buk
pretty good…if Major can live another 10 years and get over his enthusiasms and stop worrying about
sleepin’ wit the white gals
, an’ stop havin’ heros and heroines and stop havin’ money dreams and dreams of fames, he mite write somethin’.

L,
Buk

(p.s.—Yes, Murakami good like bamboo, delicate but strong)

[
SM sent this undated enclosure with an inscribed copy of her book; the proper names are titles of her paintings
.]