I have met garbage men with more soul than President Johnson; and this is not sad, this is the way it should be. Johnson is trying to stir alive the soul of Franky D.—which was War and Economic Justice. well, that’s the same chapter. I am not much on these history-makers, these killers; but I’d like to see just one pop up: non-war and economic justice. but this is the hell of too much thought. I sit here writing you tonight with 6 teeth aching the living christ outa me and only 2 beers left and the landlord will want his $85, even tho once a week she or he will come down and get me and ask me to get drunk with them and so I’ll get drunk with them, we’ll talk, and then we’ll sing corny songs, songs of their choice, and I’m glad to see them happy but they don’t help my happiness much except that they drink and I drink and we sit there in their breakfast nook until Frances brings the kid and the kid cries and Frances says, “come home, come home!” so I come home, fuck it, and it’s a beautiful little girl, tho, and I think she loves me. that’s hell. [* * *]

[To Ruth Want-ling]

September 11, 1965

in response to your last letter, which I realize was a lot in jest but not entirely—yes, I prob. do carry around my little wooden cross of pain and wave it a bit too much, and even feel foolish defending it…for it’s up to a man to create art if he’s able, and not to talk about it, which, it seems, he’s always more than able. I’m nuts, yes, reamed-out and sick; a lot of it shows in the poems. I am an anti-man, pretty sick of the show, yet I have not killed myself, so you have me there; but if you think my way is bad, you ought to try the other—I mean the life-is-good, God-is-good, life-is-beautiful crew. Mostly midwest with names like Irma Tremble Stockholder or Bobby Poots West. they vomit continual Affirmation at a sickening rate, and just because you don’t see the magazines around (I doubt Bill reads them) doesn’t mean that they don’t exist. don’t get the idea that everybody writes like Want-ling (they can’t) or Bukowski. they don’t. just for a laugh to jack-off the fleas I once sent a couple of poems into one of those golden hymn singing outfits. they took them. but I had to pay the price. a long letter came along: “I know your type, brilliant but a drunkard, a gambler, unhappy, disbelieving in God…” (so on, so on). “I awaken every morning to the sound of birds outside my window and I have birds inside too, my canaries, and I have joy and peace, and my magazine pays for itself.” the letter was 4 or 5 pages long in the handwriting of an old woman. I took all her guff until she mentioned that was her policy to make contributors pay for their issue. I wrote back an ass-scorcher and got my issue free. full of hundreds of 3 or 4 lines poems. a photo of a man (poet?) in airforce uniform on cover. so this is the way it works: she thinks I’m sick and I think she’s dull. how do we know who’s right as I sit here listening to E. Power Biggs pound out Handel?