eating cold plums in bed she told me about the German who owned everything on the block except the custom drapery shop and he tried to buy

I stop my car at the signal I see her walking past the graveya… as she walks past the iron fence I can see through the iron fence and I see the headstones

There were continual fights. The teachers didn’t seem to know anything about them. And there was always trouble when it rained. Any boy who brought an umbrella to school or wore a rainc...

he walks up to my Volks after I have parked and rocks it back and forth grinning around his

She wasn’t really a cop, she was a clerk-cop. And she started coming in and telling me about a guy who wore a purple stick pin and was a “real gentleman.” “Well,” I’d ask, “how was old ...

I had to fly to Illinois to give a reading at the University. I hated readings, but they helped with the rent and maybe they helped sell books. They got me out of east Hollywood, they g...

maybe I’ll win the Irish Sweepsta… maybe I’ll go nuts maybe Harcourt Brace will call or maybe unemployment insurance or rich lesbian at the top of a hill.

The first thing I remember is being under something. It was a table, I saw a table leg, I saw the legs of the people, and a portion of the tablecloth hanging down. It was dark under the...

The next day I sat in the hall in my green tin chair, waiting to be called. Across from me sat a man who had something wrong with his nose. It was very red and very raw and very fat and...

she’s young, she said, but look at me, I have pretty ankles, and look at my wrists, I have pret… wrists

Abe Mortenson was had enough to be around but he was just a fool. You can forgive a fool because he only runs in one direction and doesn’t deceive anybody. It’s the deceivers who make y...

he was just a cat cross-eyed, dirty white with pale blue eyes

she’s from Texas and weighs 103 pounds and stands before the mirror combing oceans of reddish hair

I was sitting with an anarchist from Beverly Hills, Ben Solvnag, who was writing my biography when I heard her footsteps on the court walk. I knew the sound—they were always fast and fr...