That evening the phone rang. It was Mercedes. I had met her after giving a poetry reading at Venice Beach. She was about 28, fair body, pretty good legs, a blonde about 5~feet-5, a blue...

after the slaughter house there was a bar around the corner and I sat in there and watched the sun go down through the window,

I have been hanging here headless for so long that the body has forgotten

I was casing next to G.G. early one morning. That’s what they called him: G.G. His actual name was George Greene. But for years he was simply called G.G. and after a while he looked lik...

A week later I was driving down Hollywood Boulevard with Lydia. A weekly entertainment newspaper published in California at that time had asked me to write an article on the life of the...

we are gathered here now to bury her in this poem. she did not marry an unemployed wi… beat her every

take a writer away from his typewr… and all you have left is the sickness which started him

We ran up the long ramp. I was ca… At the escalator Tammie saw the f… “Please,” I said, “we only have f… “I want Dancy to have the money.” “All right.”

if I suffer at this typewriter think how I’d feel among the lettuce— pickers of Salinas?

The next morning Tammie found a prescription in her purse. “I’ve got to get this filled,” she said. “Look at it.” It was wrinkled and the ink had run. “Well, he tried to get this prescr...

Back at Chelsey High it was the same. One group of seniors had graduated but they were replaced by another group of seniors with sports cars and expensive clothes. I was never confronte...

A sound awakened me. It was not quite daylight. Cecelia was moving around getting dressed. I looked at my watch. “I want to watch the sun come up. I love sunrises!” “I haven’t been able...

light brown stare that dumb blank marvelous light brown stare I’ll take care of it.