• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

battle-wrecked,

emerges from his

chair

and she looks at me

but only sees

love,

ha!, and I become

quick with the world

and love right back

just like I was meant

to do.

Trollius and trellises

of course, I may die in the next ten minutes

and I’m ready for that

but what I’m really worried about is

that my editor-publisher might retire

even though he is ten years younger than

I.

it was just 25 years ago (I was at that ripe

old age of 45)

when we began our unholy alliance to

test the literary waters,

neither of us being much

known.

I think we had some luck and still have some

of same

yet

the odds are pretty fair

that he will opt for warm and pleasant

afternoons

in the garden

long before I.

writing is its own intoxication

while publishing and editing,

attempting to collect bills

carries its own

attrition

which also includes dealing with the

petty bitchings and demands

of many

so-called genius darlings who are

not.

I won’t blame him for getting

out

and hope he sends me photos of his

Rose Lane, his

Gardenia Avenue.

will I have to seek other

promulgators?

that fellow in the Russian

fur hat?

or that beast in the East

with all that hair

in his ears, with those wet and

greasy lips?

or will my editor-publisher

upon exiting for that world of Trollius and

trellis

hand over the

machinery

of his former trade to a

cousin, a

daughter or

some Poundian from Big

Sur?

or will he just pass the legacy on

to the

Shipping Clerk

who will rise like

Lazarus,

fingering newfound

importance?

one can imagine terrible

things:

“Mr. Chinaski, all your work

must now be submitted in

Rondo form

and

typed

triple-spaced on rice

paper.”

power corrupts,

life aborts

and all you

have left

is a

bunch of

warts.

“no, no, Mr. Chinaski:

Rondo form!”

“hey, man,” I’ll ask,

“haven’t you heard of

the thirties?”

“the thirties? what’s

that?”

my present editor-publisher

and I

at times

did discuss the thirties,

the Depression

and

some of the little tricks it

taught us—

like how to endure on almost

nothing

and move forward

anyhow.

well, John, if it happens enjoy your

divertissement to

plant husbandry,

cultivate and aerate

between

bushes, water only in the

early morning, spread

shredding to discourage

weed growth

and

as I do in my writing:

use plenty of

manure.

and thank you

for locating me there at

5124 DeLongpre Avenue

somewhere between

alcoholism and

madness.

together we

laid down the gauntlet

and there are takers

even at this late date

still to be

found

as the fire sings

through the

trees.

beagle

do not bother the beagle lying there

away from grass and flowers and paths,

dreaming dogdreams, or perhaps dreaming

nothing, as men do awake;

yes, leave him be, in that simple juxtaposition,

out of the maelstrom, lucifugous as a bat,

searching bat-inward

for a state of grace.

it’s good. we’ll not ransom our fate

or his for doorknobs or rasps.

the east wind whirls the blinds,

our beagle snuffles in his sleep as

outside, outside,

hedges break, the night torn mad

with footsteps.

our beagle spreads a paw,

the lamp burns warm

bathed in the life of his

size.

coffee and babies

I sleep at Lila’s and in the morning

we get the breakfast special at the local cafe,

then it’s up to her friend Buffy’s.

Buffy has boy twins, father in doubt, and lives on relief

in a $150-a-month apt.

the twins wail, crawl about, I pick one up, he pulls at

my goatee.

“how nice,” I say, “to be sitting with 2 lovely ladies

at ten in the morning in the city of Burbank while

other men work.”

every time the twins get changed I note they have hard-ons

(their troubles begin at the age of one)

and their asses are red with rash and sadness.

“I used to open and close the bars,” I say,

“I used to whip men 20 years younger than myself. now I sit

with women and babies.”

we have our coffees. I borrow a cigarette. (Buffy knows I

am good for it. I’ll buy