8 - 29 - 91

8/29/91 10:55 PM

slow at the track today

my damned life dangling on the hook

I am there everyday

I don't see anybody else out there every day except the employees

I probably have some malady

Saroyan lost his ass at the track,Fante at poker,Dostoevsky at the wheel

And it's really not a matter of the money unless you run out of it

I had a gambler friend once who said‘‘I don't care if I win or lose,I just want to gamble’’

I have more respect for money,I've had very little of it most of my life

There are only two things wrong with money:too much or too little

Well,I supposed there's always something out there we want to torment ourselves with

and you get the feel of the other people,the desperate darkness,and how easy they toss it in and quit

the racetrack crowd is the world brought down to size,life grinding against death and losing

Nobody wins finally ,we are just seeking a reprieve,a moment out of the glare

(****,I just burned the end of my finger with cigarette as I was musing on this purposelessness

That woke me up,brought me out of this Sartre state!)

Hell,we need humor,we need to laugh.I used to laugh more,I used to do everying more

Now,I am writing and writing and writing,the older I get the more I write,dancing with death

Good show,and I think the stuff is alright

One day they'll say‘‘Dead’’and I'll be truly discoverd and hung from stinking bright lampposts

So what?Immortality is the stupid invention of the living

You see what the racetrack does?It makes the lines roll

Wacks,lightening and luck.The last bluebird singing

Anything I say sounds fine because I gamble when I write

Too many are too careful.They study,they teach

and they fail,and the strips them of their fire

I feel better now,up here on this second floor with the Macintosh.My pal

And Mahler is on the radio,he glides with such ease,taking big chances,one needs that sometimes

Then he sends in the long power rises

Thank you,Mahler,I borrow from from you and I can never pay you back

I smoke too much,I drink too much,but I can' twrite too much

it just keeps coming and I call for more and it arrives and mixes with Mahler

Sometimes I deliberately stop myself

I say,wait a moment ,go to sleep or look at your 8 cats or sit with your wife on the coach

You're either at the track or with the Macintosh

And then I stop,put on the brakes ,parking the damned thing

Some people have written that my writing has helped them to go on,It's helped me,too

The drinking,the writing,the horses,the 8 cats,my wife

There's a small balcony here,the door is open and I can see the lights of the cars on the Harbor Freeway south

they never stop,that roll of lights,on and on

All those people.What are they doing?What are they thinking?

We're all sent to die,all of us.What a circus!

That alone should make us love each other but it doesn't

We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities,we are eaten up by nothing

Keep it going,Mahler!You've made this a wondrous night

Don't stop,you son of a *****!Don't stop!