can i lay in bed all day listening to doug sahm don’t turn around, something’s gaining? the cat curled between my legs. i have closed all the windows though it is nearly eighty degrees. to sweat myself out. the unbelievable heat of two pm. on the sidewalk, a man with a long pointed beard, dressed in all blue, picks through the trash for beer bottles and pickle jars to recycle; ten cents a piece. the downstairs neighbor wails into a receiver well, i wasn’t asking the whole world, why did you let me leave? or so it seemed she was speaking into a phone as no one answered her. tell me: what are the purple blooms that grow only in california? pushing up against the window screens, turning the whole room, not like a bruise, but the same strange yellow-purple?

September 18, 1996

"I don’t think Wendy’s coffee has such a good taste. This is not to say I don’t like it. I like it very much. Its poor taste keeps my intentions clear; I drink coffee for the enthusiasm-prod, not for the taste. The taste, then, when it is too pleasant, can distract one from what matters most — the deep writhing jolt. Of course, some taste is necessary so that the jolt seems, at bottom, inadvertent."

from Letters to Wendy's, Joe Wenderoth

you keep telling me where you’ve been
you say that man, he’s just a friend
aww baby, o baby, it just don’t matter