sitting with the professors we talk about Allen Tate and John Crow Ransom the rugs are clean and the coffeetables shine

the acute and terrible air hangs w… as summer birds mingle in the bran… and warble and mystify the clamor of the mind… an old parrot

I made practice runs down to skid row to get ready for my future. I didn’t like what I saw down there. Those men and women had no special daring or brilliance. They wanted what everybod...

light brown stare that dumb blank marvelous light brown stare I’ll take care of it.

One night I was assigned to the stool next to Butchner. He didn’t stick any mail. He just sat there. And talked. A young girl came in and sat down at the end of the aisle. I heard Butch...

yes, it’s dark in here. can’t open the door. can’t open the jam lid. can’t find a pair of socks that ma… was born in Andernach in 1920 and…

I feel gypped by dunces as if reality were the property of little men with luck and a headstart, and I sit in the cold

Then I was called down to personnel at the old Federal Build– ing. They let me sit the usual 45 minutes or hour and one half. The man walked me back to a desk. There sat this woman. She...

It was 3 or 4 days before I had to fly to Houston to give a reading. I went to the track, drank at the track, and afterwards I went to a bar on Hollywood Boulevard. I went home at 9 or ...

lonely as a dry and used orchard spread over the earth for use and surrender. shot down like an ex—pug selling dailies on the corner.

like in a chair the color of the s… as you listen to lazy piano music and the aircraft overhead are not at war. where the last drink is as good as

the droll noon where squadrons of worms creep up like stripteasers to be raped by blackbirds. I go outside

Not much happened during the rest of her stay. We drank, we ate, we fucked. There were no arguments. We took long drives down along the shore, ate at seafood cafes. I didn’t bother with...