the vultures at the zoo (all three of them) sit very quietly in their caged tree and below

when I was in grammar school my parents were poor and in my lunch bag there was only a peanut butter sandwich.

the motion of the human heart: strangled over Missouri; sheathed in hot wax in Boston; burned like a potato in Norfolk; lost in the Allegheny Mountains;

he talks like he writes and he has a face like a dove, unt… externals. little shiver of horror runs throu… about

I didn’t know exactly why but Chuck, Eddie, Gene and Frank let me join them in some of their games. I think it started when another guy showed up and they needed three on a side. I stil...

“What’s a guy like you doing in a place like this?” We got into my car and she told me where she lived. We stopped for a couple of big steaks, vegetables, stuff for a salad, potatoes, b...

On Thanksgiving Iris prepared the turkey and put it in the oven. Bobby and Valerie came over for a few drinks but they didn’t stay. It was refreshing. Iris had on another dress, just as...

and the sun wields mercy but like a jet torch carried to hi… and the jets whip across its sight and rockets leap like toads, and the boys get out the maps

When I awakened it was 1:30 pm. I took a bath, got dressed, checked the mail. A letter from a young man in Glendale. "Dear Mr. Chinaski: I am a young writer and I think that I am a good...

I blacked out after that. I guess I had consumed more whiskey than I thought. I don’t remember arriving at Nicole’s. I awakened in the morning with my back to somebody in a strange bed....

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.

he got knifed in broad daylight, c… holding his hands over his gut, dr… on the pavement. nobody waiting in line left their… he made it to the Mission doorway,…

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

what’s bad about all this is watching people drinking coffee and waiting. I would