[To Charles Plymell]
December 3, 1975
[***] I am riven. Female claw of ballsoul. Yet when one figures one is rifted and lost forever…there are more knocks upon the door, and here each one enters more beautiful than the one lost. I mean, what rivening shit, eh, Chaz? What I am trying to say is that I hurt in the proper places and I move very slowly toward a new person…but miracle flowers arrive and perch themselves upon me. It’s as if they know that I need help. I love them, their cunthairs and my tongue dribbling in between. At my age, I ought to be playing checkers at the corner park. I’m drunk, yes. Reading in New York City, the Bowery bit, June 23, they tell me. I might round out in Baltimore…only payment I’d need would be a couple of young cunts I could eat out alive. No siffed-up shit, bastard. I’ve never had v.d. Just something that looks good and would might maybe diminish the minor tremblings of a tottering soul, hey hey hey…
Black Sparrow Press moved from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara in the fall of 1975.
[To John Martin]
December 3, 1975
now that you’ve moved I realize how tremendous our relationship has been. anyhow, if you’ve got the guts to cot down in a different area and continue, I imagine I might have too. tra lala.
Linda problem sloved…solved…I’ve been drinking. miscarriage. so we can still shoot for that 50 grand death pact. [***]
lost and lousy and lovely girls coming by almost each night. what shit. do you think they’d do this for a postal clerk? (by the way, I keep the hard-earned bankroll intact.) [***]
The novel mentioned in the following is Factotum, which was officially published on December 18, 1975.
[To John Martin]
December 10, 1975
Well, here’s the new machine—$143.10, tax included. I was out one night and came home and Linda had broken in. All my books were gone, plus the typer, radio, paintings and various items. Linda was crouched behind a brush and started smashing things when she saw me, and screaming. Some of the things, items have simply vanished, others demolished, including the typer which she bounced against the street again and again. She also broke my windows, so forth. I am putting things back together and trying to start over again. I am in semi-state of shock so please don’t expect too much literary work until after Xmas. o.k.?
Like you know, I am really waiting on the novel. As soon as it comes out please AIRMAIL me a copy…!
Just wanted to get this thing off to let you know circumstances. I’ve puttied back in all the windows and it’s quiet tonight. I intend to go on. There’s novel #3 you know, and more poems and DIRTY stories, and I hope you’re settled and all’s in order, and hello to Barbara.
[To John Martin]
December 14, 1975
things are very nice right now, and it’s damn well time they should be. the health, the feelings, the flow is (are) still in good running order. my pre-training holds me in ultra good stead. carry on, rally forth, all that. shit, it’s only the 8th round and I’ve got a good cornerman to patch up the cuts. rah rah rah. or have I finally gone nuts?
stead? is there such a word?
I would be the last one to slap you with a merry Xmas. I’d rather wish you lucky midnights and more submissive and obedient shipping clerks—than the next to last.
you tell Barbara that I’m going to answer the motherfucking bell for the 9th round.
*Cp. “The artist, like the God of the creation, remains within or behind or beyond or above his handiwork, invisible, refined out of existence, indifferent, paring his fingernails.”—A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
· 1976 ·
[To John Martin]
January 6, 1976
here’s more poems.
I’m still thinking in terms of starting the 3rd novel in a couple of months. I’m not quite sure I’m man enough to handle it. You know, tones of vindictiveness, all that. Unless the slant and the laughter and the judgement get off of beggary it’s almost a waste. The problem is not so much what I feel but what everybody must feel in similar traps. Tra lala. [***]
The new novel announced here as Love Tales of the Hyena eventually was published as Women in December, 1978.
[To John Martin]
January 22, 1976
[***] Have you ever read Catullus? There’s a translation by Carl Sesar via Mason & Lipscomb, seems full of butter, fire and laughter. Too bad Cat seemed to have drifted off into homo-sexuality. That may be a standard literary trait but it always discourages me. Anyhow, he could lay down a line, and he was dead around the age of 30. Them there war the daze; it seems like slavery creates art. can you send me a couple of slaves, John? virginal, about 15 with golden sensitive hairs about the boxes? I wait…
my Boswell—Pleasants—says he has discovered some typos in Facto. [***] I’ve heard some good sounds from people who’ve read the book. But get ready for critical attacks. If you can take it, I can write some more. Title for 3rd novel Love Tales of the Hyena. I’ve written a chapter out of the center. But whether I ever write the thing or how long it takes, that’s drizzle out of a long spread from nowhere.
Hey, you tell Barbara that the book design was super super-bia exellente….DON’T FORGET! [***]
[To John Martin]
January 24, 1976
Thanks for the good words in ye Calendar section of ye good ol’ L.A. Times.
If the game ends right here it has very well been worth it, that big run right up through center banging against malarkey and piss-ants, tradition, whores, fags, schools, sharks.
I’m still at Hollywood and Western, there’s a potato boiling behind me, the health is amazingly good and it’s very quiet here tonight. I could go to the phone and get trouble but I think I’ll just let things lay easy.
Did you see the Foreman-Lytle fight on tv? What a ball-busting back-alley drunkeroo. Well, it wasn’t dull but if that’s what championship contenders are made of Ali is going to be around like a Bukowski sucking a beerbottle. For a long time.
[To Katherine—?]
January 25, 1976
you are like sunlight
sunlight walking around.
you don’t know how good
you are.
you play with my seriousness,
make me laugh.
when you comb your hair
all the gods come down
from the mountain
and watch
you are the woman
all women should have
been.
I ache with disbelief and
yearning
no matter how you turn
your body
or what you say
it is the perfect diamond
the perfect cut
the perfect glow
and when you get the blues
I get the blues
because I don’t want you
to get the blues
in my life
I’ve told two other
women that I loved
them
I wouldn’t say it to
you
one of those women
died
and another died
in another way
if I never see you again
I will always carry you
inside
outside
on my fingertips
and at brain edges
and in centers
centers
centers
of what I am of
what remains.
[To Carl Weissner]
February 13, 1976
Kaput in Hollywood, I really like that title—you’re making me look good. Hope Martin goes your book of projected Buk poem translations. But I’m hot on Factotum, my last novel. Ya seen it yet? I think it’s the best writing I’ve done. have gotten quite a bit of mail about it agreeing with me. In fact, today I got a letter with return address of Henry Miller, Pacific Palisades, and I thought, my my, is the old man bending to
write me? But when I opened it up it was from his son, one Larry Miller. Ah well. He praised Factotum, part of which goes: “…I guess I just wanted to say thank you for being the first writer since reading my father that has made me feel that all is not lost in literature today; especially a sense of reality that seems to have escaped nearly everyone else…”
Oh, Cupcakes…she’s got it. Miss Pussycat of 1973, she’s 23, brains, body, spirit…Flaming red hair, long…she’s in front of my bedroom mirror now combing that flame as I type this to you. she’ll be the death of me, but it’s worth it, pal. [***]
I’m going to swing around and read in Pittsburgh, Boston, New York City. Big time, Buk. looking out of superjet windows, looking at stewardesses’ asses wiggling, ordering drink after drink…in there with the businessmen and swindlers and killers. I’m finally where I belong, Carl: the poetry-kill: I’ll fuck ’em in the left ear with a distorted sonnet….
[To John Martin]
March 28, 1976
[***] one of my problems is with Scarlet…Cupcakes…we’ve rifted. she’s a speed-freak, pill-head and on the smack. you just don’t know how HARD people can get until you’ve met one of those. and, of course, I got sucked-in early. you’ve seen the poems. John, will I ever meet a woman who is good to me? I suppose a lot of my problem is EGO, and at 55 I should be laying down that game altogether. as long as I’ve lived I’m just too fucking soft inside. but, baby, don’t worry, we’ll pull through this one just like we pulled through the others. not because we don’t care but because we do.
the plans now are for my first vacation. I should be in Austin April 8th to meet Katherine and stay with her a couple of weeks. that is if Linda doesn’t arrive and kill me first. I’ve been hearing quite a bit from her via phone and mail and she seems to be making overtures. I think I should kool it with her, tho. she’s simply crazy. then there’s another in Texas, Suzzana. Suzzana has a load of money, wants to marry me, take me to Paris, all that shit. do you think I could write a poem in Paris, big John? advise.
meanwhile, I hope to keep going on Hyena. if I can write that one, B.J., people will forever stop talking about The Ginger Man. there are so many unbelievable layers of laughter and love and blood madness ensconced there…you just don’t know what’s been happening to this old man while he’s been sending you these tiny poems.
Katherine is the kindest one I’ve known. but you know how a writer is—he’ll go for the sloppiest whore and the meanest bitch on earth—hoping to cure it or understand it or at least live with it…temporarily. [***] even tho I can’t spell I think my writing is getting better and better. I can feel all those words inside of me, puffing and blowing, and it doesn’t even scare me to talk about it. I’m loaded to the ear lobes. both ways.
These are from a series of mostly undated, mostly holograph notes, addressed sometimes to “Pam,” “Scarlet,” “Cupcakes,” or “Cups,” a woman who lived in the same apartment complex as Bukowski. The parenthetical date of the first one is noted on the manuscript and initialled “P.B.”
[To Pamela Brandes]
[mid-1976]
Tues. night Wednesday morning [April 6, 1976]
Pam, Pam, Pam, where are you? I love you. I love you. I love you.
3:45 A.M., Monday
I love you, you bitch. I’ll be gone for a month. I only wanted to look at you and say goodbye.
1:30 A.M. Sunday morning
Red death sunset blood glory gal—
Why is it that you are the one woman I have met who has not loved me entirely, madly and out of context? It confuses me. You must be my superior. Well, that’s all right. —I mean, if I can win 8 races out of 9 I can expect to be upset by a longshot.
[***]
[signed “blubberboy Charley” with a drawing and arrow pointing to “Tears of Agony” dropping from the figure’s eyes]
June 5, 1976
Cupcakes:
you’ve made me write a lot of poems. (another enclosed). some of the poems are nasty and vindictive, some of them are lousy, but some of them are good, so I’ve got to thank you, gal. I hope that we can remain friends…in spite of some of our rough spots. keep it together.
Pam:
I HATE YOU FOR NOT ADMITTING YOU LOVE ME.
you are acting like a stupid cunt.
you will only suffer and suffer and suffer because there is a
difference in what you feel and what SOCIETY wants you to feel.
the best way to anywhere is the most honest and truest way.
you’ve been fighting it.
you say you want to be a writer.
begin at the beginning.
your friend, Hank
Saturday, 1 p.m.
I miss you little Reds. Come see me soon.
Pam—
I’m sorry I got mad. But I give you money, your mother money, buy booze and cigarettes and dope and you treat me like a dog. I mean, hell, look at my viewpoint once in a while. Even though I may be unrealistic.
p.s.—your mother phoned. I suppose she’s found you by now. keep yourself together. I still like you a lot.
Scarlet:
Come on down and see me sometimes. I’ve got some more Southern Comfort for your strep. I even won at the track—no horseshit. Well, keep it together.
Hollywood Hank
My dear Pamela Brandes:
You too can be replaced.
Hank
Pam—
I didn’t mean it. I still love you. It’s just that you never show any feeling toward me, and Jesus Christ that sometimes cuts in pretty deep.
I don’t mean to load myself on you. I’ll work it out. It’s just going to take me a bit of time to figure out what the hell’s happening.
Hank
7-1-76
Pam—
Thanks a hell of a lot of shit for nothing.
[To John Martin]
May 3, 1976
enclosed some poems.
I have gone a bit mad, and there’s a reason. Anyway, I will be flitting about the country most of May, and June I’ll go back to work except for the N.Y.C. reading. [***]
I have to get out of this court for a while. Things are very hard and ugly here right now. I feel that by the time I get back that she (Scarlet) will be moved out from this place in the back.
I’ll be all right. No Dylan Thomas coming up. I am in more danger of doing it right here—looking up with her window light shining down from above in back, or no light for a couple of nights. I am hooked upon her barbarity—ruthless and raw—but know it’s a shit trap and must work my way out.
[To John Martin]
June 7, 1976
don’t worry; nobody’s going to crawl into bed with me unless she almost deserves it. about the Rolling Stone interview—that’s just another test the mother gods are laying upon me. I ain’t going to wilt to the sound of late trumpets semi-heralding a late and minor fame. please don’t worry about me, boss, I am too crazy to go crazy.
about Cups—she’s got a hook into me and she knows it—but she’s gone too, and talks to me straight, she promises nothing. and that’s a better game than any I know that’s GOING around. I’ve been drinking. so some of the CAPITALIZATION is accidental.
about the novel—I can’t take guidance or I’m fucked. I mean, let me write it choppy. that’s not all accidental. novels put me to sleep because they are not choppy. when we lose the raw sloppy gambling edge, then we are truly finished—turkeys. see the Dos Passos trilogy USA. I enjoyed his attempt—the idea was there—but he chopped it too fine. There is a difference between a 2 year old kid beating upon the back of a saucepan with a spoon and symphony, say, by—anybody. I have the feeling that the secret or the glow or the luck is somewhere in between. what I’m trying to say here is that I’m not writing Hyena for the Free Press. it comes out like it comes out, and I’m sorry I have but only one death to give to Bukowski. I’ll probably rewrite the fucking thing, anyhow, when I get the full scan of it written I can mend parts, throw out
parts, glue parts, add parts. but it’s fairly close to home now, I feel it more than I can see it. but let me wobble through the first course, then maybe I will be able to see my balls from my cerebellum. [***]
[To A. D. Winans]
June 7, 1976
Living on Luck Page 20
