Screams From the Balcony by Charles Bukowski

typewriter, some ribbon, paper, envelopes, stamps and soul. School—is out.
    …anyhow, I have an idea that this Creeley-blast might be good for The Outsider’s circulation, you’ll see. You took a swing but don’t back down; if you back down, you’re dead. Give them space, but don’t forget there’s creative work to be published, new people, new Buks, new Creeleys…
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    “ Kaja” is Kaye Johnson, of whom Bukowski notes, “She wrote very literary letters a bit on the pretentious side .”
     
     
    [To Jon and Louise Webb]
    April 9, 1963
     
    [* * *] If you do write Kaja, please tell her that her “White Room” has a lot of the female race laughing because it’s true and sobbing because it’s so. Women, g.d. them, tho, must learn that there are other things besides LOVE , I mean, concentrating, centering on it; the man is not actually callous but more divided—he plants his seed and moves on, not nec. toward another woman but away from the concentration .
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    [To Jon and Louise Webb]
    April 22, 1963
     
    [* * *] Heard from Kaja today and also Harold Norse—so not being much of a reader I had to open #3 and read the Norse poem, and luckily it was pretty damned good, although a little too poetic for me, I like my cake plain, but he seems filled with the fire, so, o.k. I should read more, but reading bothers me. [* * *]
    oh yes, heard from Malanga today. He sent me some of his poems, which he self-praises but which do not get to me. He thinks you’ve got something against him because he rubs elbows with Auden and the New York Crowd. Me, I don’t think you care where a man comes from as long as he lays the line down. By the way, the boys didn’t like the photos you sent, said they were too “domestic.” Wants a head portrait, or something. So to hell with it. I told him to write in space where my photo supposed to be: “Charles Bukowski wishes these poems to be his photo.” [* * *]
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    [To Jon and Louise Webb]
    April 26, 1963
     
    [* * *] The book is beginning to well into my mind as a possibility. It’s like, you know, you meet a beautiful woman, have some talk with her, but really think nothing of it because everything seems pretty much out of reach and you turn to leave and find that she’s walking beside you, and she walks up the steps with you and stands there while you open the door to your room and then she walks in with you. The book’s like that. A little too much to behold. I’ve had so many knives stuck into me, when they hand me a flower I can’t quite make out what it is. It takes time. [* * *]
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    [To Neeli Cherry]
    April 29, 1963
     
    enclosed bad photo from leftover stash I had taken for some artist who thinks he might do a drawing for Cold Dogs in the Courtyard , Cyfoeth, Chi. Lit. Times, out in May, I’m told. Anyhow, Jory over for small drunk, saw reject photo and said I should send it to you. O.k., I said, o.k. But I didn’t and J. has kept hounding, so here it is, whatever it is. Which explains nothing.
    Picked up a couple of Borestones the other day. One for “The House” and one for “The Singular Self.” They will come out later in the year, Best Poems of 1963 . I’ve never seen one of their collections. Might be pure crap. Most poetry is. Almost everything is.
    Tell Sam to keep working out. I think I can find room for a good 4 round man down at Santa Monica. I hear all you havta do is keep the gloves laced.
    More and more black cats everywhere, but there’s a white cat here, that means luck , brother. He has an angular scar down the left side of his head. Proud; a real shit-head. [* * *]
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    [To John William Corrington]
    May 1, 1963
     
    god damned quarter horses worse than money stealing sluts, hot enough out there to take the bark off an oak tree, and everything in kind of a yellow-sandish grit, like a cheap dream, and you peel the money off—your last poor bloodsmeared 5 or ten, and here they come, damp, fear-peeling, and the number goes