List of edited, revised or alternate titles
Note: this page is no longer updated.
The first title is the oldest known, taken from manuscripts or literary magazine publication (which typically predated collection in a book). For the most part these changes were made by John Martin when the poems were collected in Black Sparrow books.
11:45 P.M. Discussion
2:07 A.M.
12,000 Dollars In 3 Months
22,000 Dollars In 3 Months
3 Men At Separate Tables Against The South Wall
3 Old Men At Separate Tables
4 Years Hard Time On Carlton Way
Hard Times On Carlton Way
40 Years Ago In That Hotel Room
40 Years Ago
66 Volks Mini-Bus
1966 Volkswagen Minivan
A 350 Dollar Horse And A Hundred Dollar Whore
A 340 Dollar Horse and a Hundred Dollar Whore
A Drive Through Hell
Drive Through Hell
A Cheer For Modern Contrivances
Written Before I Got One
A Close Call While Shopping
A Close Call
A Common Interest
Lack Of A Common Interest
A Conversation Not To Remember
A Conversation To Remember
A Correction To A Lady Of Poetry
A Correction To A Lady Of Posey
A Difference
A Musical Difference
A Disgust, And Only That
Then I Know Why
A Great Place
A Great Place, Here
A Hot Sweaty Day In August
A Sweaty Day In August
A Little Cafe On 6th Street In Pedro
A Little Cafe on 6th Street
A Love Poem For All The Women I Have Known
A Love Poem
A Nature Poem For You
An Animal Poem
A Poem For The Swingers, A Poem For The Playgirls Of The Universe
A Poem For The Swingers
A Poem For Swingers
A Saturday Afternoon
Saturday Afternoon
A Tree, A Road, A Toenail
A Tree, A Road, A Toad
A Visitor Complains Of My Disenfranchise
A Visitor Complains
A Vote For The Light
A Vote For The Gentle Light
At Vegas You Have to Put Up Two To Get One That I Quit
At Vegas You Have To Put Up Two To Get One
Action
Where The Action Is Real
Action Down On The Corner
Action On The Corner
Action Off The Board
Old Man With A Cane
After Receiving A Contributor's Copy Of Nothing After A 3-Year Wait
After Receiving A Contributor's Copy
Against The Window Panes
Against The Window Pane
All Right, So Camus Had To Give Speeches Before The Academies And Get His Ass Killed In A Car-Wreck
All Right, Camus
All The Little Girls
The Little Girls
All The Sacred Christs That Never Arrive
Now
All The Spies To Numb Your Ass And Your Brain And Your Heart
Out On The Branch
Numb Your Ass And Your Brain And Your Heart
An Acceptance Slip
Acceptance
My Old Man
An Afternoon In Mid-February
An Afternoon In February
An Almost Made Up Poem About A Lady Who Has Vanished From My Mailbox
An Almost Made Up Poem
An Answer To A Critic Of Sorts
To A Critic Of Sorts
An Enemy To The King
Enemy Of The King, 1935
An Importation
The Spanish Gate
An Odd Day Destroying Beauty
Destroying Beauty
An Ordinary Poem Of Misspent Feelings
An Ordinary Poem
An Unkind Poem, They Will Say
An Unkind Poem
And A Horse With Greenblue Eyes Walks On The Sun
A Horse With Greenblue Eyes
And I Still Don't Vote
And I Still Won't Vote
Another Interview
An Interview At 70
As Much As I Hate To Use This Word
As Much As I Hate To Use The "F" Word
Artistic Selfishness, Yes, I Have It
Artistic Selfishness
ATD Or You And We
AFDC For You And Me
A Very Small Room Will Do
The Rape
Bedtime Story
A Child's Bedtime Story
Before The 7th Race, One Mile, $32,000 Claimer
Before The 7th Race
Big Grey Balloon Things, Heavy
Elephants In The Zoo
Big John Of Echo Park And Nearby Parts
Big John Of Echo Park
Blue Moon, Oh Bleweeww Mooooon How I Adore You!
Extant
Blinks A Little Spot Of Senseless Yellow In The Middle Of It All
A Little Spot Of Senseless Yellow
Bright Spots Of Light Or Serpents
Bright Lights And Serpents
Broken Ass Like A Cherry Seed Down The Throat
Like A Cherry Seed In The Throat
Carlton Way Off Western
Carlton Way Off Western Ave.
Casablanca And Everything
Casablanca
Cats And People And You And Me And Everything
In Other Words
Cats And You And Me
Christ In The Manger
Christ In His Manger
Christmas Eve, Alone (1973)
Christmas Eve, Alone
Confessions Of A Coward And Man-Hater
Confessions Of A Coward
Contributors
Contributors' Notes
D. April 9, 1553
He Died April 9, 1553
Died 9 April 1553
Daylight Saving
Daylight Saving Time
Dear Paw And Ma
Dear Pa And Ma
Decades, Centuries Of Error
Centuries Of Lies
Difficult To See Your Own Death Approaching
It's Difficult To See Your Own Death Approaching
Dinner, Rain And Transport
Dinner, Pain And Transport
Do You Believe That A Writer Can Be Taught to Write?
Do You Believe That A Man Can Be Taught To Write?
Do You Want To Enter The Arena?
So You Want To Be A Writer
Double Encounter Of Another Kind
Close Encounters Of Another Kind
Dream Girl, I Understand Your Absence
Dream Girl
Eaten By Butterflies
I Am Eaten By Butterflies
Endurance
The Significance Was Obscure
Everything Hurts To The Edge Of Goodness
Everything Hurts
Fair Stand The Fields Of France And Negation
Fair Stand The Fields Of France
Fear, Victory And Madness
Fear And Madness
First Poem Back From Hell
First Poem Back
Flashing White Teeth
Perfect White Teeth
Flight Time
Flight Time To Nowhere
Fooling Marie
Fooling Marie (The Poem)
For The Foxes, The Defamers, The Tap Dancers, And The Dreamers Of Ballet
For The Foxes
For The 18 Months Of Marina Louise
Marina
Four Young Blacks
Four Young Gang-Bangers
Friendly Advice To A Lot Of Young Men, And A Lot Of Old Men Too
Friendly Advice To A Lot Of Young Men
Gertrude Up The Stairway
Gertrude Up The Stairway, 1943
Girls Coming Home In Their Cars
Girls Coming Home
Girls, Get Back On Your Reels
Girlfriends
Goading And Whipping The Muse
Goading The Muse
God
A Little Sleep And Peace Of Silence
A Little Sleep And Peace Of Stillness
Goodbye, Goodbye, Clipped-Winged Bluebird
The Singer
Half A Goldfish
Half-A-Goldfish
Having The Flu And Nothing Else To Do
Having The Flu And With Nothing Else To Do
He Showed Me His Buttocks
He Showed Me His Back
He Uses Unwaxed Dental Floss
He Also Flosses Every Day
He's A Dog Who Types
He's A Dog
Heavy Like Dogs With Cement Shoes Walking My Skull
Heavy Dogs In Cement Shoes
Hell Is Always Now
Hell Is Now
Hello, Barbara
Upon Phoning An X-Wife Not Seen For 20 Years
Hemingway, Drunk Before Noon
Drunk Before Noon
Her Porsche Is A Pale Pink
Pale Pink Porsche
High-Roller
Another High-Roller
How Do They Get Their Jobs When I Had To Work In A Dog Biscuit Factory?
How Did They Get Their Job?
How To Get Out?
How To Get Away?
How To Get Rid Of Great Purists
How To Get Rid Of The Purists
Hurry Slowly Hurry
Hurry Slowly
Hymn For The Hurricane Of The Blinking Eye
Hymn From The Hurricane
I Am Interviewed By A Guggenheim
Interviewed By A Guggenheim Recipient
I Can Hear The Sound Of Human Lives Being Ripped To Pieces
The Sound Of Human Lives
I Don't Need A Cleopatra
I Don't Want Cleopatra
I Have Continued Writing
I have continued regardless
I Have This Room
I Have This New Room
I Live Too Near The Slaughterhouse
Too Near The Slaughterhouse
I Met This Woman
An Unusual Woman
I Pour A Drink And Toast The Love Of My Luck
I Pour A Drink And Toast Love
I Taste The Sweet Ashes Of Your Death
I Taste The Ashes Of Your Death
I Was Clean Anyhow, I Think
The Man?
I'd Like A Mermaid
I Want A Mermaid
I'm As Crazy As I Ever Was
As Crazy As I Ever Was
I'm Not A Misogynist But
I'm Not A Misogynist
I've Always Had Trouble With Money
$$$$$$
I've Fought Them From The Moment I Saw Light From The Womb
I Fought Them From The Moment I Saw Light
Idols In The Fight Through Darkness
Photos
If I Had Failed The Struggle There Would Have Been None
If I Had Failed To Make The Struggle
If I Suffer At This
The Meek Have Inherited
If You Want Justice, Take The Knife
Mind And Heart
In A Neighborhood Of Murder
I Live In A Neighborhood Of Murder
In And Out Of The Dark
Out Of The Dark
In My Day We Used To Call It Pussy-Whipped
Age And Youth
In This Place Now
In This City Now
In This Whirling Pot Of Piss Some Songs Are Born
In This Cage Some Songs Are Born
Information Upon An Empire Of Coins
An Empire Of Coins
It Was Night A Little While Ago
It Was Just A Little While Ago
It's 12:41 A.M. Somewhere, Always
Somewhere It's 12:41 A.M.
It's A Drag Just Breathing Through My Nostrils All Day Long
It's A Drag Just Breathing
It's All A Matter Of Entertainment
Entertainment
Captain Goodwine
It's Difficult To Be A God When Bananas Eat Monkeys
It's Difficult When Bananas Eat Monkeys
Art
It's Easy
My Girlfriend Says It's All So Easy
It's Never Been So Nice
It's Never Been So Good
It's Not Exactly The Sun
Not Exactly The Sun
Jaggernaut: Wild Horse On A Plastic Phallus
Jaggernaut
Jane and Droll
Jane And Prince
Kenyon Review, After The Sandstorm
After The Sandstorm
Kiss Those Days Goodbye
Bygone Days
Lazing In San Pedro
Lazy In San Pedro
Like A Flower In The Rain (For P.B.)
Like A Flower In The Rain
Like Blasted Apart By A Bomb With The First Breath
Blasted Apart With The First Breath
Lonely Hearts
The Lonely Hearts Of The Universe
Look
Look At That Guy
Look Here!
Looking For Jack Micheline
Looking For Jack
Love Crushed Like A Dead Fly
Love Dead Like A Crushed Fly
Love Song To A Woman Who Visited Santa Anita On A Wednesday
Love Song To The Woman I Saw Wednesday At The Racetrack
Luck Was Not A Lady For Me
Luck Was Not A Lady
Ma Barker Would Have Loved Me
Ma Barker loves me
Mad Enough To Puke On The Whole World
Mad Enough
Mannheim, Germany, May 1978
Mannheim, Germany
Maybe We'll See A Big Fat Guy Out There Or A Big Fat Woman Out There - Black, Yellow, Green Or Red, Drinking A Can Of Coors Beer
Maybe We'll See
Measurements From the Creation Coffin
The Creation Coffin
Melancholia And The Redhead
Melancholia
Milk A Cow And Get Milk
Milk A Cow And You Get Milk
My 3 Friends
My 3 Best Friends
My Afternoons Into Night
Afternoons Into Night
My Doom Has Wire Wheels And Girls In Light Green Tight Green Dresses Smile At Me
My Doom Smiles At Me
My Fate
My First Affair
My First Affair With That Older Woman
Naked At 92 Degrees And Waiting For The End
Naked At 92 Degrees
Near A Plate Glass Window
A Plate Glass Window
Neither Shakespeare Or Mickey Spillane
Neither Shakespeare Nor Mickey Spillane
New York In Hell
Bewitched In New York
Night Into Night
Night Unto Night
No Man Is An Island, Especially Around Hollywood Park
No Man Is An Island
No Luck For That
No Help For That
Nobody Is Going To Save
Nobody But You
Nobody Wants To Hear Your Troubles
Nobody Knows The Trouble I've Seen
Note Upon Our Very Drab Affair
A Note Upon Modern Poesy
Nothing's Free, Not Even The Sun
Nothing's Free
Now If You Were Teaching Creative Writing, He Asked, What Would You Tell Them
Now, If You Were Teaching Creative Writing
Nuke Me, I Wouldn't Know
I Don't Care
Observations On Music By An Alcoholic
Observations On Music
Off The Board
Introduction to chapter 2
Oh, To Be Young!
Oh, To Be Young In 1942!
On The Banks Of The University
On The Sunny Banks Of The University
On The Failure Of A Poet, On The Failure Of The Earth
On The Failure Of A Poet
On The Sidewalks And In The Sun
On The Sidewalk And In The Sun
One, With...Fantasy
Christ with Barbecue Sauce
One Hundred Dollars
One Thousand Dollars
One More Good One. Why Not?
One More Good One
One of Those Crazy, Crazy Nights
One Of Those Crazy Nights
One Out
One Out In The Minor Leagues
Only The Truly Lost
Blue Beads And Bones
Out Of The Money (Celine Is 3 Dots...)
Out Of The Money
Outside The Racetrack Just Before The 9th Race
Racetrack Parking Lot At The End Of The Day
Pain Like An Old Black And White Snapshot
Pain Like A Black-And-White Snapshot
Places To Die And Places To Hide And Place To Spin A Top
Places To Die And Places To Hide
Poem To A Man In Jail
Christmas Poem To A Man In Jail
Prayer For A Whore In Bad Weather
Prayer In Bad Weather
Proclamation And Instruction
She Was Really Mad
Produced And Bottled By Franciscan Vineyards
Produced And Bottled By
Quick Dream
Trouble In The Night
Raw With Love (For N.W.)
Raw With Love
Re-Union (Or, For Almost All The Girls And Most Of The Times)
Re-Union
Reading The Little Magazines
Reading Little Poems In Little Magazines
Rexall Cut Rate 4:30 pm
Cut-Rate Drugstore: 4:30 p.m.
Rimbaud Be Damned: I Have Withstood 99,000 Seasons In Hell And I Still Look Down Into This Glass Wondering, Wondering
Rimbaud Be Damned
Ringed Bathtub, Peacock Or Bell
Peacock Or Bell
Robert Ryan: American Matador
American Matador
Sailing Up Your Yellow River
Up Your Yellow River
Screwed Within The Universe
Where Was I?
Secret Laughter Shining
Secret Laughter
See Here
Strangers At The Racetrack
Self-Inflicted
Self-Inflicted Wounds
She Came Out Of The Bathroom With Her Flaming Red Hair And Said
She Came Out Of The Bathroom
She Caught It In The Air
She Caught It On The Fly
She's Free And She's Wild
Now She's Free
Sitting In A Sandwich Joint Just Off The Freeway
Sitting In A Sandwich Joint
Small Conversation In The Afternoon
Small Conversation In The Afternoon With John Fante
Solving A Crime Before It Begins Is Important Too
Solving A Crime Before It Begins
Some Notes On The Word And The Way
Some Personal Thoughts
Some People Never Go Crazy
Some People
Sometimes When You Get The Blues There Might Be A Damned Good Reason
Sometimes When You Get The Blues There's A Reason
Sometimes You Go A Bit Crazy And You Don't Know Why
Sometimes You Go A Bit Crazy
Song For This Softly-Sweeping Sorrow
Our Bones
Spelling It Out
Spelling It Out On My Computer
Startled Into Steam Of Life Like Fire
Startled Into Life Like Fire
Stud Service
No Quickies, Remember
Success?
Introduction to chapter 4
The Bells Of The Condom
Robert
The Best Men Type Strongest Alone
The Best Men Are Strongest Alone
The Big Lonely, Lonely Night
The Big Lonely Night
The Big Morning Outside The Bar
The Strange Morning Outside The Bar
The Strange Morning
The Big Score
On The Continent
The Big Weight-Lifting Feat
My Big Moment
The Bums At Phillipe's
Phillipe's 1950
The Calm Elation Of Something All Right, Somewhere, Maybe Here
Calm Elation, 1993
The Closing Of The Topless And Bottomless Bars
The Closing Of The Bottomless Bar
The Condition
The Continual Condition
The Couple
The Old Couple Next Door
The Darkening Light
The Darkening Life
The Day I Kicked A Bankroll Out The Window
The Day I Kicked Away A Bankroll
The Death Of An Idiot
Death Of An Idiot
The Difficulty
The Difficulty Of Breathing
The Dream, The Dream, The Dream
The Dream, The Dream
The Drunk With The Little Legs
Toulouse
The Dwarf With The Big Punch
The Dwarf With A Punch
The Elephants
The Elephants Of Vietnam
The End Of A Short Love Affair
The Beginning Of A Brief Love Affair
The End Of The Funhouse
Funhouse
The Eternal Players
The Eternal Horseplayers
The Factory Crew Of South East L.A.
Sparks
The Fall Of The Roman Empire
The Fall
The Funeral
One Writer's Funeral
The Game
The Hero And The Shortstop
The Girls In Pantyhose At Bus Stop Benches
Girls In Pantyhose
The Harder You Try, The Harder You Die
The Harder You Try
The Highschool Girls
High School Girls
The Hollywood Hustle
Hollywood Hustle
The Imagination And The Reality
Imagination And Reality
The Ladies Who Rip Men Apart
The Dangerous Ladies
The Lady In The Castle And The Lady Not In The Castle
The Lady In The Castle
The Lady Poet Of Unrelenting Doom
The Doomed Lady Poet
The Lady Who Looks Young Forever
The Lady Who Looks Forever Young
The Liberated Woman And The Liberated Air
Liberated Woman And Liberated Man
The Man On The Bus Stop Bench
The Young Man On The Bus Stop Bench
The Meaning
The Meaning Of It All
The Mischief Of Expiration
Beauty Gone
The New Neighborhood
Feeling Good In The New Neighborhood
The New Revolution
The Counter Revolution
The Night I Nodded To George Raft In Vegas
The Night I Saw George Raft In Vegas
The Old Guy At The Piano
The Old Guy In The Piano Bar
The Old Helping The Old
Helping The Old
The Old Soul-Suck Life
The Soulless Life
The Other Day I Saw A Man Reading The Wall Street Journal As If It Did Contain Something
Democracy
The Popularity Kid Of The Universe
The Popularity Kid
The Princess Tina
Mother And Princess Tina
The Red Pigeon
The Blue Pigeon
The Schoolyard Of Forever
Schoolyards Of Forever
The Silver Mirror (For Georgia K.)
The Silver Mirror
The Simplicity Of Everything
The Simplicity Of Everything In Viet Nam
The 6 Foot Goddess (For S.D.)
The 6 Foot Goddess
The Smirking Of The Dark
The Smirking Dark
The Swarm Of Impossibility Can Be Knocked On Its Ass
One Learns
The Temporal Ease
Temporal Ease
The Time I Knocked Out Ernest Hemingway And Was Discovered As A New Literary Giant
Class
The Two Toughest Apes In The South Bay Area
The Two Toughest
The Way It Is
To Hell And Back
The Way It Works?
This Kind Of Fire
The Way To Review A Play And Keep Everybody Happy But Me
Serligev
The Weirdest Day of All
The Weirdest Day
The Wine That Roared Like A Lion
The Wine That Roared
The Voice Of The Bukowski
The Voice Of Chinaski
There Was Once A Woman Who Put Her Head Into An Oven That I Could Have Kissed With The Most Ultimate Love Possible
There Once Was Woman Who Put Her Head Into An Oven
There's A Poet On Every Barstool And Not Only That, They're All Geniuses
There's A Poet On Every Bar Stool
These Good People
Those Good People
They Arrived
They Arrived In Time
They Rolled The Whole Bed
They Rolled The Bed Out Of There
This Is When They Come In For What's Left Of Your Soul
This Is Where They Come For What's Left Of Your Soul
Those Flashes
Legs And White Thighs
Thoughts While Having A Sandwich And Coffee At 12:45 p.m. At A Local Cafe
Thoughts While Eating A Sandwich
Dark Night Poem
To The Ladies Who No Longer Think Of Me
To The Ladies No Longer Here
To Weep In Her Hair
To Weep
To Kiss Her Long Dark Hair
Too Early, Too Late, And Never
Too Early!
Transformation And Disfiguration At The P.O.
Transformation And Disfiguration
Ummmm
Introduction to chapter 2
Unemployed And Shacking
Unemployed
Upon Phoning An X-Wife Who I Haven't Seen For Twenty Years
Hello, Barbara
Upon Phoning An X-Wife Not Seen For 20 Years
Upon This Time Of Lull And Dull
Upon This Time
Uraguay Or Hell
Uruguay Or Hell
V.G. And 9 Innings Of This
Van Gogh And Nine Innings
Visitor
Extraterrestrial Visitor
War, And That Particular Bayonet
This Particular War
Water The Plants
Time To Water The Plants And Feed The Cat
We Ain't Got No Money, Honey
We Ain't Got No Money, Honey, But We Got Rain
Well, Yes, This Is A Bitter Poem
This Is A Bitter Poem
When The Violets Roar At The Sun They'll Set Us Free
When The Violets Roar At The Sun
Where's It At?
What's It All Mean?
Why Oh Why Oh Why And Why Not?
Why Oh Why And Oh Why Not?
Wide And Revolving
Wide And Moving
William Burrows
My Friend William Burroughs
Won't You Tiptoe Through The Tulips
Will You Tiptoe Through The Tulips With Me?
Work-Fuck Problems
Work-Fuck Problem
Working Through
Working Through It All
Writing Is Very Much A State Of Trance
Writing Is A State Of Trance
Ya Know, Beethoven Conducted His Last Symphony While Almost Totally Deaf
Beethoven Conducted His Last Symphony While Totally Deaf
You Can Never Tell Who You're Going To Meet At Any Moment
You Can Never Tell Who You're Going To Meet
You Must Remember That Each Day You Get Out Of Bed, It's A New Beginning
Remember This
You'll Be Moaning And Groaning In Your Poems
Moaning And Groaning
Rosary For A Once Tenderness
A Dead Romance
You're Not Going To Believe This
The Tide
No Man Is An Island
Salty Dogs
Horsemeat
Choose one of the following options to search only:
Books
Magazines
Poems
Short stories
Manuscripts
Uncollected work