this poet he’d been drinking 2 or 3 days and he walked out on the stage and looked at that audience and he just knew he was going to do it. there was a grand piano on stage and he walke...

it was Philly and the bartender sa… what and I said, gimme a draft, J… got to get the nerves straight, I’… going to look for a job. you, he s… a job?

all right, while we are gently cel… and while crazy classical music le… my small radio, I light a fresh ci… and realize that I am still very m… the 21st century is almost upon me…

I’ve watched this city burn twice in my lifetime and the most notable event was the reaction of the politicians in the

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...

unaccountably we are alone forever alone and it was meant to be that way, was never meant

My mother went to her low-paying job each morning and my father, who didn’t have a job, left each morning too. Although most of the neighbors were unemployed he didn’t want them to thin...

One morning a few days later I entered Lydia’s courtyard as she was walking in from the alley. She had been over to see her friend Tina who lived in an apartment house on the corner. Sh...

But there were some good moments. My sometime friend from the neighborhood, Gene, who was a year older than I, had a buddy, Harry Gibson, who had had one professional fight (he’d lost)....

here comes the fishhead singing here comes the baked potato in dra… here comes nothing to do all day l… here comes another night of no sle… here comes the phone ringing the w…

listen, he said, you ever seen a b… bucket? no, I told him. well, what happens is that now and… will climb up on top of the others

the problem, of course, isn’t the… it’s the living parts which make up the Dem… the next person you pass on the st… multiply

Our man was there to meet us, Gary Benson. He also wrote poetry and drove a cab. He was very fat but at least he didn’t look like a poet, he didn’t look North Beach or East Village or l...