and she was right and I did get up, I laughed and walked over and poured myself a glass of whiskey and looked at those legs. electricity yellow and whiskey yellow and nylon colored legs. she’s dead now and the legs do not look so good anymore but I can’t blame her for that.

[* * *] On Layton, he’s up in Canada, I don’t know where. You can probably contact him through Alan Bevan (editor) c/o evidence, Box 245, Station [illegible], Toronto 5, Ontario, Canada. Bevan sent me his latest book The Laughing Rooster to review, which I have done, and am waiting on word whether it’s going to run or not. I tore a little meat but also went on in waving wands of glory over some of the poems. Layton’s been around a while and maybe the way the teeth of the machine work, too long. he’s getting to be a craftsman. I mean in his own way. not theirs. but it’s still bad. he’s finding it’s too easy to lay it down and make it sound good. the words flow off the ribbon good, but not just quite right. this comes from working the bull, from knowing the steps, knowing the crowd, when and how to hook the sword perfectly and bring in the ears and the tail too and bring down that BIG one out of the stands for later over the springs zeep zeeep zeep ZEEP, another sword. But Layton—even with knowing too much what he is doing, is still far ahead of the rest.—how many people will come through for you with work, I do not know. the poets I have met are generally notorious snobs, they are not very good people. what I mean is, some of these Awrtists…might think mimeo below their dignity. really, most of them eventually buy the shadows, they buy the stink…the New Yorker or The Atlantic can wave them on in with a dollar bill and get them to stick their heads right up that dirty crotch. I don’t understand it, there is very little that I do understand. If Life magazine walked in with their cameras they’d smile and smirk and pose and talk like highschool boys with their first drink working toward the first dizzy worthless bitch dressed in taffeta. I mean, you may write these boys, and they may write well but I am not responsible for the rust and bologna that crawls into the soul and makes a snob or a prick or a jackass or a fink out of a man who can, or who once could, lay down a good line.