we take what we can see— the engines driving us mad, lovers finally hating; this fish in the market staring upward into our minds;

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...

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 had been corresponding with Tanya and on the evening of January 5th she phoned. She had a high excited sexy voice like Betty Boop used to have. “I’m flying down tomorrow evening. Will...

it’s unfortunate, and simply not the style, but I don’t care: girls remind me of hair in the sink, girls remind me of intestines and bladders and excretory movements; it’s unfortunate a...

my goldfish stares with watery eye… into the hemisphere of my sorrow; upon the thinnest of threads we hang together, hang hang hang

I began receiving letters from a girl in New York City. Her name was Mindy. She had run across a couple of my books, but the best thing about her letters was that she seldom mentioned w...

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...

I have just spent one—hour—and—a—h… handicapping tomorrow’s card. when am I going to get at the poem… well, they’ll just have to wait

I heard it first while screwing a… who had the biggest box in Scranton. I listened to it again as I wrote… to my mother

consistency is terrific: shark-mouth grubby interior with an almost perfect body, long blazing hair—