Information has been received in this office indicating that you were arrested by the Los Angeles Police Department on March 12, 1969, on a drunk charge. In this connection, your atten...

My drinking slowed down the next week. I went to the racetrack to get fresh air and sunshine and plenty of walking. At night I drank, wondering why I was still alive, how the scheme wor...

my first and only wife painted and she talked to me about it: it’s all so painful

I think of automobiles parked in a parking lot when I think of myself dead I think of frying pans when I think of myself dead

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...

Phillipe ’s is an old time cafe off Alameda street just a little north and east of the main post office. Phillipe’s opens at 5 a.m.

the old L.A. Public Library burn… down that library downtown and with it went large part of my

“It’s the manager, Freddy. He has started whistling this song. He’s whistling it when I come in in the morning and he never stops, and he’s whistling it when I go home at night. It’s be...

she writes: you’ll be moaning and groaning in your poems about how I fucked those 2 guys last week.

you consult psychiatrists and phil… when things aren’t going well and whores when they are. the whores are there for young boy… men; to the young boys they say,

They had me in the counselor’s office in one of the back rooms of the second floor. “Let me see how you look, Chinaski.” He looked at me. “All right, Mr. Chinaski, we’d like to know whe...

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

Cleo’s going to make it now she’s got her shit together she split with Barney Barney wasn’t good for her she got a bigger apartment

Somehow the money slipped away after that and soon I left the track and sat around in my apartment waiting for the 90 days’ leave to run out. My nerves were raw from the drinking and th...

don’t worry about rejections, pard… I’ve been rejected before. sometimes you make a mistake, taki… the wrong poem