“Chinaski, you got a following in Denver...” “yeah?” “yeah, I got a magazine and I wan… poems from you...”

a woman, a tire that’s flat, a disease, a desire: fears in front of you, fears that hold so still

I can see myself now after all these suicide days and n… being wheeled out of one of those… (of course, this is only if I get… by a subnormal and bored nurse

washed—up, on shore, the old yello… out again I write from the bed as I did last year.

Either peace or happiness, let it enfold you when I was a young man I felt these things were dumb, unsophisticated.

this head like a saucer decorated with everything as lip to lip we hang in mechanical joy; my hands blaze with arias

you won’t see them often for wherever the crowd is they are not. those odd ones, not

I was shacked with a 24 year old girl from New York City for two weeks—about the time of the garbage

They don’t make it the beautiful die in flame— suicide pills, rat poison, rope wh… ever... they rip their arms off,

naked along the side of the house, 8 a.m., spreading sesame seed oil over my body, Jesus, have I come to this? I once battled in dark alleys for…

the illusion is that you are simpl… reading this poem. the reality is that this is more than a poem.

he was 65, his wife was 66, had Alzheimer’s disease. he had cancer of the mouth. there were