vain vanilla ladies strutting while van Gogh did it to himself. girls pulling on silk hose

in junior high school Big Max was a problem. we’d be sitting during lunch hour eating our peanut butter sandwiche… and potato chips.

Wagner wasn’t done with us. I was standing in the yard during gym class when he walked up to me. “I’m putting you on garbage detail until further notice.” The kids had to work off their...

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

well, first Mae West died and then George Raft, and Eddie G. Robinson’s been gone long time,

my doctor has just come into his o… from surgery. he meets me in the men’s john. “God damn,” he says to me, “where did you find her? oh, I jus…

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

I used to hold my social security… up in the air, he told me, but I was so small they couldn’t see it,

the 3 horse clipped the heels of the 7, they both went down and the 9 stumbled over them, jocks rolling, horses’ legs flung skyward.

red summers and black satin charcoal and blood ringing the sheets while snails are stepped on and moths go batty

the men phone and ask me that. are you really Charles Bukowski the writer? they ask. I’m a sometimes writer, I say, most often I don’t do anything.

you’re a beast, she said your big white belly and those hairy feet. you never cut your nails and you have fat hands

we’d had any number of joints and… beer and I was on the bed stretche… and she said, “look, I’ve had 3 ab… in a row, real fast, and I’m sick… abortions, I don’t want you to sti…