PARTISAN REVIEW
25
tine, yet many were clever. "He certainly knows how to write!"
Why then did he never indite a reader's delight? A tome that
would strike the public as funny (and make him some money)?
He looked out the window and counted his change, dreamed
of a peach of a mouth that would kiss him, conjured a tongue
sweet as honey. He groaned alone and saw the ladies he had
known stroll in his imagination through his rooms in thyn arraye,
after a pleasaunt gyse. When their loose gowns from their
shoulders fell he'd cast his spell and they'd enact some shameless
tricks.
In
such wise did the oaf amuse his days.
If
he djd not daily write his trash, or read, or weep his
dwindling cash, or create his girls in undies heels and hose to adorn
his gloomy room, he'd loaf. Where like a pillow on the bed, his
eyes would dreamy close; into his stinking sewer (his dour sink) of
a mind would intrude a zany name. Soon it would find its place in
a line of the newest bore of a book that his busted brain spun out
each day in the stupid delusion that it was fine. He can write all
right, reviewers would say. Yet nor gleam nor ray of Yankee
success lanced the dreary mess this writer made of his life.
Still, he lived, liked bugs, and (one himself) talked to boobs;
wrote reviews for various journals Uust once) till they got wise to
his sordid views. He knew some Jews, drank booze when he could
and loved wood; lay and squatted, sat and stood.
In
his books a
chef, a baker of saddening mists, yet each foggy page had a turning
of laughter, a churning of laughter, hilarious rages of bittersweet
fun.
He put in his belly (his tummy!) along with his jam and his
(yum yummy!) jelly, bourbon and beer, strong coffee, beans and
bacon and eggs, some meat, an occasional candy or cookie or bun.
In
solitude, single, we know he lacked -- pardon my crudity -–
nookie, and so took himself firmly in hand. (The feeling was
lonely bu t grand.)
He rambled the past so surely ensconced in his brain, loved
fires and trains. When asked by reporters the reasons arcane for his
singular lack of financial success, he gently complained. The
"time" was out "of" joint if not moreover, sprained, "if" not
