a great white light dawns across the continent as we fawn over our failed traditions, often kill to preserve them or sometimes kill just to kill.

There are sketches on the walls of men a… and outside a large green bus swerves th… insanity sprung from a waving line; Turg… says the radio, and Jane Austin, Jane… “I am going to do her portrait on the 28…

first they used to, he told me, gun and bomb the elephants, you could hear their screams over all th… but you flew high to bomb the people, you never saw it,

they say that nothing is wasted: either that or it all is.

he has on blue jeans and tennis shoes and walks with two young girls about his age. every now and then he leaps into the air and

a poem is a city filled with streets and… filled with saints, heroes, beggars, mad… filled with banality and booze, filled with rain and thunder and periods… drought, a poem is a city at war,

dying for a beer dying for and of life on a windy afternoon in Hollywood listening to symphony music from my litt… on the floor.

ask the sidewalk painters of Paris ask the sunlight on a sleeping dog ask the 3 pigs ask the paperboy ask the music of Donizetti

in the men’s room at the track this boy of about 7 or 8 years old came out of a stall

with old cars, especially when you buy t… and drive them for many years a love affair is inevitable: you even learn to accept their little

for five years I have been looking across the way at the side of a red apartment house. there must be people in there even love in there

he met her at the racetrack, a strawberr… blonde with round hips, well-bosomed, lo… turned-up nose, flower mouth, in a pink… wearing white high-heeled shoes. she began asking him questions about var…

he sits all day at the bus stop at Sunset and Western his sleeping bag beside him. he’s dirty. nobody bothers him.

the canaries were there, and the lemon t… and the old woman with warts; and I was there, a child and I touched the piano keys as they talked—

we tried to hide it in the house so that… neighbors wouldn’t see. was difficult, sometimes we both had to be gone at once and when we returned there would be excreta and urine all

he talks like he writes and he has a face like a dove, untouched… externals. little shiver of horror runs through me… about

the dead dogs of nowhere bark as you approach another traffic accident. cars one standing on its

the schoolyard was a horror show: the bu… freaks the beatings up against the wire fence our schoolmates watching glad that they were not the victim;

saw him sitting in a lobby chair in the Patrick Hotel dreaming of flying fish and he said “hello friend you’re looking good.

I am driving down Wilton Avenue when this girl of about 15 dressed in tight blue jeans that grip her behind like two hands steps out in front of my car

the old fart, he used his literary reput… to reel them in one at a time, each younger than the last. he liked to meet them for luncheon and wine

we have everything and we have nothing and some men do it in churches and some men do it by tearing butterflie… in half and some men do it in Palm Springs

as the orchid dies and the grass goes insane, let’s have one for the lost: met an old man and a tired whore

naked in that bright light the four horse falls and throws a 112-pound boy into the hooves

first of all, I had a hard time, a very… locating the parking lot for the buildin… wasn’t off the main boulevard where the cars all driven by merciless killers were doing 55 mph in a 25 mph zone.

very tall girl lifts her nose at me outside a supermarket as if I were a walking garbage can; and I had no desire for her, no more desire

suppose like others have come through fire and sword, love gone wrong, head-on crashes, drunk at sea, and I have listened to the simple sound…

they get up on their garage roof both of them 80 or 90 years old standing on the slant she wanting to fall really all the way

the waste of words continues with a stunning persistence as the waiter runs by carrying the loade… tray

people went into vacant lots and pulled up greens to cook and the men rolled Bull Durham or smoked Wings (10 a pack) and the dogs were thin and the cats were thin and the cats learned h...

I was glad I had money in the Savings a… Friday afternoon hungover I didn’t have a job I was glad I had money in the Savings a… I didn’t know how to play a guitar

long ago he edited a little magazine was up in San Francisco during the beat era during the reading-poetry-with-jazz expe… and I remember him because he never retu…

at North Avenue 21 drunk tank you slept… there was always some guy who would step… way to the crapper and then you would curse him good, set h… he would know enough to either be more c…

luxury ocean liners crossing the water full of the indolent and rich passing from this place to that

Tony phoned and told me that Jan had left him but that he was all rig… helped him he said to think about other… like D. H. Lawrence pissed off with life in general but stil…

she undressed in front of me keeping her pussy to the front while I lay in bed with a bottle of beer. where’d you get that wart on

the telephone has not been kind of late, of late there have been more and more ca… from people who want to come over and ta… from people who are depressed from people who are lonely

Mongolian coasts shining in light, listen to the pulse of the sun, the tiger is the same to all of us and high oh so high on the branch

of late I’ve had this thought that this country has gone backwards or 5 de cades

one of the first actors to play Tarzan w… Motion Picture Home. he’d been there for years waiting to die… he spent much of his time running in and out of the wards

ah, Merryman, fighter on the docks, killed a man while they were unloading bananas. mean the man he killed

he got knifed in broad daylight, came up… holding his hands over his gut, dripping… on the pavement. nobody waiting in line left their place… he made it to the Mission doorway, colla…

the wind blows hard to night and it’s a cold wind and I think about the boys on the row. hope some of them have a bottle

I’m in bed. it’s morning and I hear: where are your socks? please get dressed!

at the window I watch a man with a power mower the sounds of his doing race like flies and bees

yes, they begin out in a willow, I think the starch mountains begin out in the wi… and keep right on going without regard f… pumas and nectarines somehow these mountains are like

one of the terrible things is really being in bed night after night with a woman you no longer

you no faces no faces at all laughing at nothing—

screen like a burglar to take your life… the snake had crawled the hole, and she said, tell me about yourself.

the boy walks with his muddy feet across… soul talking about recitals, virtuosi, conduc… the lesser known novels of Dostoevsky; talking about how he corrected a waitres…

as the spirit wanes the form