Loading Mercury With a Pitchfork Read online

  Copyright © 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976

  by Richard Brautigan

  All rights reserved

  including the right of reproduction

  in whole or in part in any form

  Published by Simon and Schuster

  A Gulf+Western Company

  Rockefeller Center, 630 Fifth Avenue

  New York, New York 10020

  Designed by Elizabeth Woll

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

  Brautigan, Richard.

  Loading mercury with a pitchfork.

  I. Title.

  PS3503.R2736L6 811’.5’4 76-2001

  ISBN 0-671-22263-5

  ISBN 0-671-22271-6 pbk.

  Some of these poems first appeared in Mademoiselle, Harper’s Magazine, Blue Suede Shoes, The World, Mark in Time, California Living, Five Poems (Serendipity Books), Esquire, Clear Creek, City Lights Anthology, and The CoEvoIution Quarterly

  For Jim Harrison and Guy de Ia Valdene

  "Friendship"

  CONTENTS

  Crows and Mercury

  Love

  Section 3

  Group Portrait Without the Lions

  Good Luck, Captain Martin

  Five Poems

  Montana / 1973

  P. S.

  CROWS AND MERCURY

  POSTCARD

  I wonder if eighty-four-year-old Colonel Sanders

  ever gets tired of travelling all around America

  talking about fried chicken.

  LOADING MERCURY WITH A PITCHFORK

  Loading mercury with a pitchfork

  your truck is almost full. The neighbors

  take a certain pride in you. They

  stand around watching.

  IT'S TIME TO TRAIN YOURSELF

  It's time to train yourself

  to sleep alone again

  and it's so fucking hard.

  THE ACT OF:

  DEATH-DEFYING AFFECTION

  The act of: death-defying affection

  insures the constancy of the stars

  and their place at the beginning of

  everything.

  TWO GUYS GET OUT OF A CAR

  Two guys get out of a car.

  They stand beside it. They

  don’t know what else to do.

  PUNITIVE GHOSTS LIKE STEAM-DRIVEN

  TENNIS COURTS

  Punitive ghosts like steam-driven tennis courts

  haunt the apples in my nonexistent orchard.

  I remember when there were just worms out there

  and they danced in moonlit cores on warm September

  nights.

  CROW MAIDEN

  Starring a beautiful young girl and twenty-

  three crows. She has blonde hair. The crows are

  intelligent. The director is obsessed with the

  budget (too low). The photographer has fallen

  in love with the girl. She can’t stand him. The

  crows are patient. The director is a homosexual.

  The girl loves him. The photographer

  daydreams murder. “One hundred and seventy-

  five thousand. I was a fool!” the director says

  to himself. The girl has taken to crying a lot at

  night. The crows wait for their big scene.

  And you will go where crows go

  and you will know what crows know.

  After you have learned all their secrets

  and think the way they do and your love

  caresses their feathers like the walls

  of a midnight clock, they will fly away

  and take you with them.

  And you will go where crows go

  and you will know what crows know.

  INFORMATION

  Any thought that I have right now

  isn’t worth a shit because I’m totally

  fucked up.

  ARE YOU THE LAMB OF

  YOUR OWN FORGIVING?

  I mean: Can you forgive yourself / all

  those crimes without victims?

  AUTOBIOGRAPHY (POLISH IT

  LIKE A PIECE OF SILVER

  I am standing in the cemetery at Byrds, Texas.

  What did Judy say? “God-forsaken is beautiful, too.”

  A very old man, who has cancer on his face and takes

  care of the cemetery, is raking a grave in such a

  manner as to almost (polish it like a piece of silver.

  An old dog stands beside him. It’s a hot day: 105.

  What am I doing out here in west Texas, standing in

  a cemetery? The old man wonders about that, too.

  My presence has become a part of his raking. I know

  that he is also polishing me.

  AUTOBIOGRAPHY (WHEN THE MOON

  SHINES LIKE A DEAD GARAGE

  When the moon shines like a dead garage

  I travel with gasoline ghosts down all those haunted

  miles of the past, twenty-seven Model A miles an hour

  in 1939, going to where I have forgotten.

  AUTOBIOGRAPHY (GOOD-BYE,

  ULTRA VIOLET

  The telephone rings in San Francisco,

  “This is Ultra Violet.”

  I don’t know her except that she

  is a movie actress.

  She wants to talk to me.

  She has a nice voice.

  We talk for a while.

  Then she has to go someplace.

  “Good-bye.”

  JANUARY 3

  I’ve started off with a mistake

  but I’ll try to get better

  and put the day in good order.

  THEY ARE REALLY HAVING FUN

  They are really having fun,

  drinking glasses of wine

  and talking about things

  that they like.

  WE MEET. WE TRY. NOTHING HAPPENS, BUT

  We meet. We try. Nothing happens, but

  afterwards we are always embarrassed

  when we see each other. We look away.

  HOME AGAIN HOME AGAIN

  LIKE A TURTLE TO HIS BALCONY

  Home again home again like a turtle to his balcony

  and you know where that’s at.

  YOU WILL HAVE UNREAL

  RECOLLECTIONS OF ME

  (For Rilke)

  You will have unreal recollections of me

  like half-developed photographs

  for all the days of your life, even though

  you have never met me because I have dreamt

  you. Soon it will be morning, the dream

  over.

  FINDING IS LOSING SOMETHING ELSE

  Finding is losing something else.

  I think about, perhaps even mourn,

  what I lost to find this.

  IMPASSE

  I talked a good hello

  but she talked an even

  better good-bye.

  HOMAGE TO CHARLES ATLAS

  A daydream exercises your mind

  for a moment or two like an invisible

  muscle. Then it’s gone, totally

  forgotten.

  ON PURE SUDDEN DAYS LIKE INNOCENCE

  On pure sudden days like innocence

  we behold the saints and their priorities

  keypunched in the air.

  CURIOUSLY YOUNG LIKE A FRESHLY-DUG

  GRAVE

  Curiously young like a freshly-dug grave

  the day parades in circles like a top

  with rain falling in its shadow.

  RIGHT BESIDE THE MORNING COFFEE

  If I write th
is down now, I

  will have it in the morning.

  The question is: Do I want

  to start the day off with

  this?

  MONTANA INVENTORY

  At 85 miles an hour an insect splattered

  like saffron on the windshield

  and a white cloud in blue sky above the

  speed-curried bug

  OAK

  crows / the

  crows / the

  (the tree)

  BEN

  I telephone Oklahoma this evening. The telephone

  rings eight or nine times but nobody’s home. Ben’s

  not in his trailer parked in a field just outside

  of Oklahoma City.

  THE NECESSITY OF APPEARING

  IN YOUR OWN FACE

  There are days when that is the last place

  in the world where you want to be but you

  have to be there, like a movie, because it

  features you.

  FOR FEAR YOU WILL BE ALONE

  For fear you will be alone

  you do so many things

  that aren’t you at all.

  WAR HORSE

  He stands alone in a pasture

  but nobody can see him.

  He has been made invisible

  by his own wounds.

  I know how he feels.

  ALBERT EINSTEIN (OR UPON

  FIRST READING THAT LIGHT IS

  PROJECTING ITSELF AT

  372,000 MILES PER SECOND FROM

  CRAB NEBULA 5,000 OLD-FASHIONED

  LIGHT-YEARS AWAY

  We all lose a few.

  “GOOD WORK,” HE SAID, AND

  “Good work,” he said, and

  went out the door. What

  work? We never saw him

  before. There was no door.

  LOVE

  SEPTEMBER 3

  (THE DR. WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS

  MISTAKE

  I had severe insomnia last night with

  the past, the present and the future detailing

  themselves

  like: Oh, the shit we run through our minds!

  Then I remembered that it was Dr. William Carlos

  Williams’ birthday and that made me feel better

  until almost dawn.

  Note:

  September 3 is not

  Dr. William Carlos Williams’

  birthday. It is the birthday

  of a girlfriend.

  Dr. William Carlos Williams

  was born on September 17, 1883.

  Interesting mistake.

  LIGHTHOUSE

  Signalling, we touch,

  lying beside each other

  like waves.

  I roll over into her

  and look down through

  candlelight to say,

  “Hey, I’m balling you.”

  EVERYTHING INCLUDES US

  The thought of her hands

  touching his hair

  makes me want to vomit.

  WHAT HAPPENED?

  You were the prettiest girl

  in your high school graduating class

  in 1927.

  Now you have short blue hair

  and nobody loves you,

  not even your own children.

  They don’t like to have you around

  because you make them nervous.

  I’LL AFFECT YOU SLOWLY

  I’ll affect you slowly

  as if you were having

  a picnic in a dream.

  There will be no ants.

  It won’t rain.

  UMBRELLAING HERSELF LIKE A

  POORLY-DESIGNED ANGEL

  Umbrellaing herself like a poorly-designed angel

  she falls in love again: destined to a broken heart

  which is the way it always is for her. I’m glad

  she’s not falling in love with me.

  HERE IS SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL (ETC.

  Here is something beautiful (etc.

  I have so little left that you

  would want.

  Its color begins in your hand.

  Its shape is your touch.

  AS MECHANICAL AS A FLIGHT OF STAIRS

  As mechanical as a flight of stairs,

  as solemn as a flight of stairs,

  they have found each other after years

  of looking.

  WE WERE THE ELEVEN O’CLOCK NEWS

  We were the eleven o’clock news

  because while the rest of the world

  was going to hell we made love.

  AT THE GUESS OF A SIMPLE HELLO

  At the guess of a simple hello

  it can all begin

  toward crying yourself to sleep,

  wondering where the fuck

  she is.

  SEXUAL ACCIDENT

  The sexual accident

  that turned out to be your wife,

  the mother of your children

  and the end of your life, is home

  cooking dinner for all your friends.

  BUSINESS

  When he died he left his wife

  three gas stations and a warehouse.

  He left his mistress two supermarkets.

  FUCK ME LIKE FRIED POTATOES

  Fuck me like fried potatoes

  on the most beautifully hungry

  morning of my God-damn life.

  FLOWERS FOR A CROW

  You have your friends.

  I have mine.

  SECTION 3

  HAVE YOU EVER BEEN THERE?

  I can tell by your eyes that I

  have asked the wrong question.

  They look troubled and away. We’ll

  change the subject.

  ATTILA AT THE GATES

  OF THE TELEPHONE COMPANY

  They said that

  my telephone

  would be fixed

  by 6.

  They guaranteed

  it.

  THE AMELIA EARHART PANCAKE

  I have been unable to find a poem

  for this title. I’ve spent years

  looking for one and now I’m giving

  up.

  November 3, 1970

  I DON’T WANT TO KNOW ABOUT IT

  I don’t want to know about it.

  Tell it to somebody else.

  They’ll understand and make you

  feel better.

  MARCH 18, RESTING IN THE MAYTAG

  HOMAGE

  Looking out a hotel window

  it’s snowing in New York with

  great huge snowflakes like millions

  of transparent washing machines swirling

  through the dirty air of this city, washing

  it.

  WE ARE IN A KITCHEN

  We are in a kitchen

  in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

  Some bacon is frying.

  It smells like a character

  that you like in a good movie.

  A beautiful girl is watching

  the bacon.

  THE LAST SURPRISE

  The last surprise is when you come

  gradually to realize that nothing

  surprises you any more.

  TOWARD THE PLEASURES OF

  A RECONSTITUTED CROW

  Toward the pleasures of a reconstituted crow

  I collect darkness within myself like the shadow

  of a blind lighthouse.

  A MOTH IN TUCSON, ARIZONA

  A friend calls me on the telephone

  from Tucson, Arizona. He’s unhappy.

  He wants to talk to somebody

  in San Francisco.

  We talk for a while. He mentions

  There’s a moth in the room.

  “It’s solemn,” he says.

  DEATH LIKE A NEEDLE

  Death like a needle

  made from a drunken clown’s breath

  sews the shadow of a [I can’t make

  the next two words
out. I first

  wrote this poem in longhand] to your

  shadow.

  HEROINE OF THE TIME MACHINE