had it for a year, really put in lot of bedroom time, slept upright on two pillows to keep from coughing, all the blood drained from my head

“You ought to try to be like Abe Mortenson,” said my mother, “he gets straight A’s. Why can’t you ever get any A’s?” “Henry is dead on his ass,” said my father. “Sometimes I can’t belie...

I had agreed to give a reading up north. It was the afternoon before the reading and I was sitting in an apartment at the Holiday Inn drinking beer with Joe Washington, the promoter, an...

It was 12 hours a night, plus supervisors, plus clerks, plus the fact that you could hardly breathe in that pack of flesh, plus stale baked food in the “non-profit” cafeteria. Plus the ...

The first three or four days at Mears-Starbuck were identical. In fact, similarity was a very dependable thing at Mears-Starbuck. The caste system was an accepted fact. There wasn’t a s...

if you can’t stand the heat, he sa… kitchen. you know who said that? Harry Truman. I’m not in the kitchen, I say, I’… oven.

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

love, he said, gas kiss me off kiss my lips kiss my hair my fingers

in the slow Mexican air I watched… and they cut off his ear, and his… no more terror than a rock. driving back the next day we stopp… and watched the golden red and blu…

Graduation Day. We filed in with our caps and gowns to “Pomp and Circumstance.” I suppose that in our three years we must have learned something. Our ability to spell had probably impro...

the goldfish sing all night with g… and the whores go down with the st… the whores go down with the stars I’m sorry, sir, we close at 4:30, besides yr mother’s neck is dirty,

Meanwhile, there was still Joyce, and her geraniums, and a couple of million if I could hang on. Joyce and the flies and the geraniums. I worked the night shift, 12 hours, and she pawed...

beheaded in the middle of the night scratching my sides I am covered with bites kick my white legs out of the shee…