sure, man, run some of my letters, would like to see, for whole thing becoming covered with a kind of moss and I feel dead already & would like to see that I did gabble about in my palmier days—when I jacked off with both hands, crosshand stroke, underhand and back up around the ass. would really like to see it; would revive some of my mimes. right now, as far as the writing goes it goes slowly. I wait on myself, feeling badly, feeling the Notre Dame worms crawling in my bellyhairs, I still wait, wait for the poem to come out-butter and tacks and a lady with a limp and beautiful knees going by my window. my window my window my window ah my window. [* * *]

[To Jon and Louise Webb]

[December 27, 1967]

want to thank you for the o.k. to PENGUIN on reprint of some of It Catches stuff for the Penguin Poetry Series. it won’t be out until Xmas ’68, and the royalties are not astounding but if I am around by then whatever bit it is might save me from the pit, the pit of madness, sickness, the row, whatever pit there is, each inch helps save what’s left, so thanks, surely, the o.k., esp. since you are evidently down on me—a column, a Shermanism, whatever the hell, I don’t know, but that’s the way it works. I know that you were very unhappy and worried in Tucson and both not feeling well, and it was a bad time for me to be there. so it goes, but still you were good enough to give the PENGUIN O.k., so you do not play small and bitter games and crash a man down because of dislikes. that’s good moxie, and all I can say is “thanks,” which doesn’t seem like very much.

I hope that wherever you are now that things are easier.

I didn’t get the grant. just a form-letter. so it’s try to hang onto the horror of the post office; if it weren’t for Marina I think I’d just go out and lay down in the gutter. everybody I know has either gotten a grant or been offered one, so I guess Bukowski is just shit with the govt. agency, and so I sit and peck at the typer while my toenails bite at my feet. in same mail—a few weeks back—a letter from W. C[orrington] telling me, in essence, that I could dish it out but not take it.

the dog-pack is really after my aging ass.

did have some luck with Evergreen. poem in Dec. issue and they have accepted a rather long one on bullfighting for a future issue.