Screams From the Balcony Read Online Free PDF Page A

the first mag, “but this man appears too bizarre.” Or this is the condensation of it. I do not believe in writing a short story unless it crawls out of the walls. I watch the walls daily but very little happens.
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    The review mentioned in the next letter was among the very earliest published recognitions of Bukowski’s work. R. R. Cuscaden’s “Charles Bukowski: Poet In a Ruined Landscape” appeared in Satis, no. 5. Cuscaden, editor and publisher of Midwest magazine, brought out Bukowski’s Run With the Hunted ( 1962 ).
     
     
    [To Ann Bauman]
    June [20?], 1962
     
    Yes, Sibelius later went into hiding and shaved his head; I’m told he was a handsome and vain man, and age bothered him, but for it all
 
    he wrote the long-striding line
    stepped around the mountains
    and died.
     
    It is 26 minutes before 9 a.m. and I am out of beer. [* * *]
    I include herein Satis an English magazine that has printed a couple of poems that fall into the non-uplifting category. You can get the other kind anywhere. Also, a review of my 3 books by Cuscaden. It is a good damned thing I do not wear a hat or I could not get it around my head after reading these reviews.
    Darling, this is the trap: BELIEVE YOU ARE GOOD WHEN THEY TELL YOU YOU ARE GOOD AND YOU ARE THEREBY DEAD, DEAD, DEAD . dead forever. Art is a day by day game of living and dying and if you live a little more than you die you are going to continue to create some pretty fair stuff, but if you die a little more than you live, you know the answer.
    Creation, the carving of the thing, the good creation is a sign that the god that runs you there inside still has his eyes open. Creation is not the end-all but it is a pretty big part. End of lecture #3784. [* * *]
 
    Corrington, a poet then teaching at Louisiana State University, was to write the introduction to Bukowski’s first Loujon Press book , It Catches My Heart in Its Hands, which would finally appear in the fall of 1963. Bukowski notes, “An early booster of my work.” He adds that their long correspondence “stopped after he wrote his novel and went to Hollywood .”
     
     
    [To John William Corrington]
    June 24, 1962
     
    IN KIND OF A NUMB STATE LATELY? I mean, me. THE END OF THE SOUL . mebee. Anyhow, just crawling out of the sack and looking around, that’s about where I am at. They’ve machine gunned me down to this nub. good. cigarettes, cigars, candy?
    Jon’s hard at the book, I know. How about yours? I heard that your San Francisco Review has folded or will change hands. Weren’t they going to bring out a new collection of your poems? Check your tires for air.
    Just off a four day drunk. Bloody ass. Glass on floor. Broke. Coffeepot now going in front of me: GLUGGLE, GLUGGLE, GLUKE GLUKE !! I think a new piece of ass would fix me fine. This old stuff gets so hard to handle. That their eyes spray me with love is not enough. It is the sagging of the tit, the worn-flesh? If I could only once have a drink of clear spring water. Everything has mud in it and sticks and discarded socks. Well, I am not so much myself. Crows don’t sleep with peacocks. I’ve got to realize this. [* * *]
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    Wormwood Review published the following letter as Bukowski’s response to the editor’s explanation that the payment for publication was four copies “which we will mail to anywhere, anybody or anything….” (M.S. is presumably a slightly disguised reference to Sheri Martinelli and C. W. to John William Corrington .)
     
     
    [To Marvin Malone]
    [August 1962]
     
    well, ya better mail one to M.S. or she’ll prob. put her pisser in the oven, she thinks she is a goddess, and maybe she is, I sure as hell wd’t know
    like some of the boys tell me,
    then there is C. W. who does not answer his mail but is very busy teaching young boys how to write and I know he is going places, and since he is, ya better mail ’m one…
    then there’s my old aunt in Palm Springs nothing but money and I have everything but