16 years old during the depression I’d come home drunk and all my clothing— shorts, shirts, stockings—

he used to sell papers in front: Get your winners! Get rich on a d… and about the 3rd or 4th race you’d see him rolling in on his ro… with roller skates underneath.

I sat in the airport and waited. You never knew about photos. You could never tell. I was nervous. I felt like vomiting. I lit a cigarette and gagged. Why did I do these things? I didn’...

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...

“your poems about the girls will s… 50 years from now when the girls a… my editor phones me. dear editor: the girls appear to be gone

Meanwhile, things went on. I had a long run of luck at the racetrack. I began to feel confident out there. You went for a certain profit each day, somewhere between 15 and 40 bucks. You...

no one is sorry I am leaving, not even I; but there should be a minstrel or at least a glass of wine. bothers the young most, I think:

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

she left me 5 weeks ago and went t… that is, I think she left. the other day I went out to mail h… and I saw her sitting on the bus s… it was her hair there

The next night as they moved the group from the main build– ing to the training building, I stopped to talk to Gus the old newsboy. Gus had once been 3rd-ranked welterweight contender b...

majestic, magic infinite my little girl is sun on the carpet—

That Tuesday night we were sitting at my place drinking; Tammie, me and her brother, Jay. The phone rang. It was Bobby. “Louie and his wife are down here and she’d like to meet you.” Lo...

half-past nowhere alone in the crumbling tower of myself stumbling in this the

Then the supervisor moved us to a new aisle. We had been there ten hours. “Before you begin,” the soup said, "I want to tell you some– thing. Each tray of this type of mail must be stuc...