my god, her pretty pussy should some night some years sit there not getting out, not even for the moon, not even for a walk down to the corner for a dull newspaper, does she know what it means to walk back and forth a certain space and only that space and that no matter what you say, no matter how you SCREAM, that that space will not widen except through death or pardon or insanity? and even then? fuck it. Jon, you know. when I by god get letters from cunts like this I near vomit, I look to the sun to make me well. that it grows these blind children.

[To Jim Roman]

[July 1, 1964]

yes, by god, no one is more pleased than I to be the victim of another magic book of the starving Webbs’ gutwork and pure glad madness. I don’t know about the poems. I know they could print a cookbook that would bring tears to the ears. (and eyes too!) Rexroth was right (in review) when he said my press was too good. but it’s like a beautiful woman asking to go to bed with you—what are you going to do? turn her away? ah no, not even at my age! [* * *]

I don’t hear any more from Willie [Corrington] and I guess he’s shipping in from England, all lost and hooded in the pages of his second novel. I just hope he doesn’t get too efficient about turning them out, but I’m a crank and a puritan and a nut this way: always carrying what’s left of my soul in a little glass jar in my pocket like a fishing worm. [* * *]

[To Kay Johnson, preceded by note to Jon and Louise Webb]

Dear Jon & Lou:

Letter I wrote to Kaja some time back. Forwarded all over

Europe, then came back to me.—B.

[handwritten:]

September 15, 1964

Dear Kaja—

All right, I know it was a drunken letter and you’ve got to stop stealing my stuff! Anyhow you said Copenhagen, so here I am writing to Copenhagen. [* * *]

[typewritten:]

you know, u really kant get the ingress into a WORD without the typer, the typer is the carver, the ax, the cleaver, the thing with the mouth that hollers about the bloody dice. it machineguns the mind out of penury. fuck the pen. anyhow, I am sitting around feeling my arms and legs and balls, trying to figure out if I am real or not. I must be: about 3 a.m. I wiped my ass. the sun is just right today, kind of an icy tired yellow, limp vain vaindog of a sky. bull. listen, do you know what we are trying to do? are we crazy or do we mean something with our poems, or is it children’s games, or tricks, or colored water? we gotta have blood! bloody shades in cheap hotels; mortar in the streets, shellholes! hoar-frosted wine! and young girls running wild down the streets chased by hungry dogs! my god my god, everything is so dull. even the bomb will be dull. it won’t last. we won’t last. this is profound. YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW profound this is. all right, listen, don’t mess up too much in Cope.—I remain sitting in the sun, 44 years old, 3 or 4 blocks south of HOLLYWOOD, my god my god, and for it all it is a good day, I am not too sick today although I may hit the first man I meet on the street square in the face.