[To Carl Weissner]

March 24, 1967

well, shit, a little high, nothing new. well, anyhow, John Thomas said he would airmail tape I did of my poetry—airmail—so you should have it by the time you get this, or very soon. friend, it is almost 2 hours to me reading my swillsteak business. not partkclary from any area, just what my hands reached or what was easy or consumable or felt like it. I didn’t realize that I had read so long but had been drinking a bit and taking down these strange colored pills (not LSD), not really VERY high, only in a passable stage of FITS. I mean, time was a dishpan. it didn’t matter. I read straight through, I believe, without a stop. most of the poems I had forgotten, didn’t know the next line, intonation, connection, but feel really this was for the good rather than the bad because it stopped me FROM SETTING UP ONE LINE TO FIT THE NEXT. this is important, I believe. tho it may not be. I don’t know. I know less and less—and feel much better for it. I think, tho, I am not sure—that the tape is on 4-track. you got a 4 tracker machine? I think this means you play the same reel through twice? anyhow, instructions are on box tape came in? aren’t they? what drab stuff, this talk! only I always get mixed up on presumptions. I don’t want to mix anybody up. I mean, people always presume that YOU KNOW WHAT THEY KNOW. YOU ASK THEM THE WAY TO THE NEAREST WHOREHOUSE. they say, 2 blocks left, one right, see this barbershop, ask for sam, he’ll send you to clean cheap pussy. so what HAPPENS? YOU GET THERE and there are THREE barbershops! and each barber is named SAM. you run back on in and get flogged across the asshole with a rusty windjammer rainbow clamstink frozen loaf of russian rye bread embedded with toy tots singing, “somethin’s happenin’ and you don’t know what it is, do you mista Jones???” [* * *]