[* * *] somebody got me started on a novel and then got pissed at me because I tapped a rich friend of his for $150. I got drunk and had to get my car started, the old ’57 was murdering me sitting at that curbing not moving, not moving, and also had to have 6 teeth pulled. how can we write novels with the extra poison from our teeth adding to the other poison? so now I gotta finish the novel, but not in too bad shape because I’ve heard from 2 outfits (small presses) that want to do a book of mine, and they seem trustworthy, but problem is they might have been thinking poem-book. this novel about 2 years I once lived in a faded green hotel, The Way the Dead Love. I guess I’ll finish it. I screwed very nearly every woman in that hotel including the scrubwoman who was nearly 60. even screwed a guy in the ass by mistake one night. it ought to be a laugher. starvation, drink, madness and fuck. really all tragic and beautiful people including myself. the chapters will be short clipped action happenings, but no general plot, just a recording of the place. done like Confessions only much longer. I hope it doesn’t pancake. I’ll lose about 100 poems writing it. but shit, I’ve lost 100 poems, at least, in the mails. that fucker who lives with Warhol, I forget his name, won’t return a batch, and in a recent issue of Tish I fuck recognized he stole one of my lines, used it as a last line to nail down a lousy poem: MY FEET TOUCH CHINA IN THE DREAM. those are my lines, babe. although accredited to…Malanga. giz christ, gossip. but true. and discouraging when weighed against my hopes for the human factor ever becoming clean.