Clinton also had a ski run right in the middle of "the yards," and Corso learned to downhill ski and taught the mafiosi. He entertained his mobster elders as a court jester, quick with ripostes and jokes. Corso would often cite the three propositions given him by a mafia capo: "1) Don't serve time, let time serve you. 2) Don't take your shoes off because with a two to three you're walking right out of here. 3) When you're in the yard talking to three guys, see four. See yourself. Dig yourself." Corso was jailed in the very cell just months before vacated by Charles "Lucky" Luciano. While imprisoned, Luciano had donated an extensive library to the prison. ("Poet's Work, Poet's Play: Essays on the Practice and the Art." 2008). There, Corso began writing poetry. He studied the Greek and Roman classics, and voraciously absorbed encyclopedia and dictionary entries. He credited "The Story of Civilization", Will and Ariel Durant's ground-breaking compendium of history and philosophy, for his general education and philosophical sophistication. In 1951, 21-year-old Gregory Corso worked in the garment center by day, and at night was a mascot yet again, this time at one of Greenwich Village's first lesbian bars, the Pony Stable Inn. The women gave Corso a table at which he wrote poetry. One night a Columbia College student, Allen Ginsberg, happened into the Pony Stable and saw Corso... "he was good looking, and wondered if he was gay, or what." Corso, who was not gay, was not uncomfortable with same sex come-ons after his time in prison, and thought he could score a beer off Ginsberg. He showed Ginsberg some of the poems he was writing, a number of them from prison, and Ginsberg immediately recognized Corso as "spiritually gifted." One poem described a woman who sunbathed in a window bay across the street from Corso's room on 12th Street. The woman happened to be Ginsberg's erstwhile girl friend, with whom he lived in one of his rare forays into heterosexuality. Ginsberg invited Corso back to their apartment and asked the woman if she would satisfy Corso's sexual curiosity. She agreed, but Corso, still a virgin, got too nervous as she disrobed, and he ran from the apartment, struggling with his pants. Ginsberg and Corso became fast friends.