SOME WRITERS WHO HAVE INSPIRED WILLIAM

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RAYMOND CARVER

Click image to visit Phil Carson's Raymond Carver Page, including bibliography and links; for two interviews with Carver on the Prose as Architecture site, click here or for related items on Amazon, click here

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NELSON ALGREN

Click image to visit the website of The Nelson Algren Committee; to read Jeff McMahon's article, 'The Secret Faces of Inscrutable Poets: Nelson Algren's Chicago: City on the Make,' click here or for related items on Amazon, click here

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LOUIS FERDINAND CELINE

Click image for a 10 page extract from 'Journey Till the End of Night' on the Zwyx site; for the official Celine website, click here or for related items on Amazon, click here

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ROBINSON JEFFERS

Click image to visit Jeffers - the Jeffers Study home page; for the website of the Robinson Jeffers Tor House Foundation, click here or for related items on Amazon, click here

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THOMAS HARDY

Click image to visit the Thomas Hardy Resource Library website; for the official website of the Thomas Hardy Association, click here or for related items on Amazon, click here

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RICHARD BRAUTIGAN

To visit The Brautigan Bibliography Plus+ website, click image; to read about Brautigan on the Literary Kicks website, click here or for related items on Amazon, click here

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J.D. SALINGER

For JD Salinger links, online texts, biography, bibliography on the Levity.com website, click image, or for related items on Amazon, click here

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SOME MOVIES WILLIAM DIGS

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GUMMO

Click image to read about the film on the Fine Line Features website; to read an interview with the film's director, Harmony Korine on the Project A website, click here or for related items on Amazon, click here

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ERASERHEAD

Click image to read about the film on director, David Lynch's German website; to visit David Lynch's official website, click here or for related items on Amazon, click here

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COWARDS BEND THE KNEE

Click image to read about the film on the Zeirgeist Films website; for a selection of reviews of the film on the Metacritic website, click here or for related items on Amazon, click here

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BARTON FINK

Click image for an interview with the Coen Brothers about the film on the Cinepad website; to read the film's script on the Daily Script website, click here or for related items on Amazon, click here

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LOST HIGHWAY

Click image to read about the film on the Lynch Net website; to read about the film on the City of Absurdity website, click here or for related items on Amazon, click here

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THE BIG LEBOWSKI

Click image for a selection of clips from the film on the Nihilist's website; for The Big Lebowski fanlisting, click here or for related items on Amazon, click here

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RECOMMENDED WEBSITES

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CENTENNIAL PRESS

LUMMOX PRESS

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'JOHN BERRYMAN, THEY SAY'

John Berryman, they say
before jumping off the
Washington Avenue Bridge

waved goodbye
to a passing stranger

now
say what you will
about the man
his art
and the right to
or wrongness of
suicide

style
you must admit
is important in such matters.

'SAD POEM #572'

I had begun to believe the world
no longer had the power
to break my heart

and then her face again
out of nowhere

something beautiful
I threw away

her beauty like knives
and all the things I never
told her

it has all come back to me
suddenly and
more real than the sun
and hurts in the way
that only dreams
and lost things can.

'ONE MORE QUESTION'

She had been beautiful once
and we sat at the bar
drinking bloody mary’s on a listless
august afternoon

her movements lacked the grace
they once possessed
and something was missing
from her smile
she wore her 26 years
like a coat she had since grown
tired of

she had green eyes
honest laughter
and a firm belief
in nothing much at all

I understood her more than I understood
most people

she exhaled long and slow
and we both watched the smoke
snake about the air in front of us

then she turned to me and said, god, Bill,
what am I going to do with
myself?

It was 3 o'clock on a monday afternoon
and here was one more question
I didn't have an answer for.

'PRODUCT'

The 21st century has arrived
exactly as advertised:
Glorious and terrible,
obvious and banal.
And with it comes the first war
of the post post-modern age.
And they sell it like product,
they sell it like flat screen televisions
and laptop computers,
new and improved,
repackaged and sanitized
for our protection,
the latest thing
to make our neighbors jealous.
But underneath
a fresh coat of paint and
refurbished slogans
it’s just another sequel
that smells of corpses
and ash
and the lies of powerful men
who sell us death
and call it collateral damage.
And we pay
as we have always paid,
we buy what they sell
as we always have.
And they praise us
for our patronage,
they pat our backs
and send us on our way
With t-shirts
And flags to wave.
Thousands of years upon the earth
and we can think of nothing better
than this.
At best it is tiring and lacking in
Imagination,
at best we should be ashamed.
And how much blood
does it take
to fill the void
in the heart of man
I could not say.
There is much I do not understand,
but I am fairly sure
that life
is not forever,
and death
will arrive on time
and under it’s own power
as it always has,
needing no assistance
from the likes of us.

'THE SOUND OF HER BREATHING'

the four walls of a room
momentarily
holding the ugliness of the world
at bay
enough to drink
until the dawn
the warmth of a body
pressed against my own
a few moments of living
wedged in
between the drudgery of mere existence
there is nothing else to ask for
the sound of her breathing
is all I need of poetry
I offer no explanation
no definition
for this moment in time
I like the feeling of my hand
upon her belly
and that is enough.

'LIKE WINTER'

I don’t care what you say
there is a beauty in this
old men in bars on
weekday afternoons
while the world outside
sweat and aches
with the doing of things
inside these walls
time moves slow
and we have all the
necessary things
smoke and drink
and silence
a little talk and some
gentle laughter
all of us hiding
from something
waiting for yesterday’s love
and tomorrow’s unemployment checks
Sinatra on the jukebox
and the bartender steps outside
to smoke and she leans
against a lamppost saying
it smells like winter
and I do believe
she’s right.

'POSTCARD'

A foggy
afternoon on Geary Blvd.
I am late for work and
step outside just in time to
miss my bus
and when the next bus comes it is not
my bus
this bus is bright red and shiny
this bus is two stories tall
and in big yellow letters across the side
it says San Francisco Sunshine Tours
this bus is packed with people
with faces pressed to windows
and a man with a microphone
standing at the front pointing and
telling them things
the people stare and take pictures
with digital cameras
and I imagine the man with the microphone telling them
how this all used to be
graveyards and sand
and here on your left is the Sea View Liquor Store
(from which you can’t actually view the sea)
and look there you’ll see
the elderly Russian lady
counting dimes for a bottle of cheap
red wine
and here is the hung over man
late for work
and look
he’s left his fly undone
and the people take their pictures and I wave
hoping maybe to become somebody’s postcard
to send back home to Kansas
or France
or wherever the fuck
and then the bus is over a hill and gone
and I am left waiting for my own bus
which arrives
too late
like always.

'DEATH AND LANDLORDS AND THE DISSOLUTION OF DREAMS'

She writes me long and rambling
letters in which she tells me
I’m a poet
and I feel I should write her back and tell her
in truth I am only afraid of people
and the ringing of telephones and alarms
and I am only looking for a quiet place to hide
from death and landlords
and the dissolution of dreams
my failings powers and my
aging face
she calls me a poet
and I only want a tall bloody mary
at three in the afternoon
I only want to get lost
in this lonely city
to become one with the dirty alleys
and sidewalks
the tall gray buildings
against the tall gray sky
I only want a barful of faces
I’ve never seen
I want a jukebox with sad and honest songs
and a five dollar bill to feed it
she calls me a poet
and I only want the woman at the back of the bus
to stop talking so loud
and I only want to be forgiven
for my inability to love
she calls me a poet but I don’t know how
to write a poem about the hippie girl
with the bloody face
stumbling down Haight Street
on a Monday afternoon
and I don;t know how to write a poem
about the stuttering man who survived the
Trade Center Bombings
or the woman at the back of the bus
who won’t stop talking too loud
she calls me a poet and I only want to
walk through these doors
order a drink
look around and see something other than
sad old men.

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