I thought to myself what a lovely nib trout fishing in America would make with a stroke of cool green trees along the river’s shore, wild flowers and dark fins pressed against the paper.
Prelude to the Mayonnaise Chapter
“The Eskimos live among ice all their lives but have no single word for ice.”—Man: His First Million Years, by M. F. Ashley Montagu
“Human language is in some ways similar to, but in other ways vastly different from, other kinds of animal communication. We simply have no idea about its evolutionary history, though many people have speculated about its possible origins. There is, for instance, the ‘bow-bow’ theory, that language started from attempts to imitate animal sounds. Or the ‘ding-dong’ theory, that it arose from natural sound-producing responses. Or the ‘pooh-pooh’ theory, that it began with violent outcries and exclamations . . . We have no way of knowing whether the kinds of men represented by the earliest fossils could talk or not . . . Language does not leave fossils, at least not until it has become written . . .” —Man in Nature, by Marston Bates
“But no animal up a tree can initiate a culture.”—“The Simian Basis of Human Mechanics,” in Twilight of Man, by Earnest Albert Hooton
Expressing a human need, I always wanted to write a book that ended with the word Mayonnaise.
The Mayonnaise Chapter
Feb 3–1952
Dearest Florence and Harv.
I just heard from Edith about
the passing of Mr. Good. Our heart
goes out to you in deepest sympathy
Gods will be done. He has lived a
good long life and he has gone to
a better place. You were expecting
it and it was nice you could see
him yesterday even if he did not
know you. You have our prayers
and love and we will see you soon.
God bless you both.
Love Mother and Nancy.
P.S.
Sorry I forgot to give you the mayonaise.
THE PILL VERSUS THE SPRINGHILL MINE DISASTER
Writing 20
This book is for Miss Marcia Pacaud of Montreal, Canada.
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace
I like to think (and
the sooner the better!)
of a cybernetic meadow
where mammals and computers
live together in mutually
programming harmony
like pure water
touching clear sky.
I like to think
(right now, please!)
of a cybernetic forest
filled with pines and electronics
where deer stroll peacefully
past computers
as if they were flowers
with spinning blossoms.
I like to think
(it has to be!)
of a cybernetic ecology
where we are free of our labors
and joined back to nature,
returned to our mammal
brothers and sisters,
and all watched over
by machines of loving grace.
Horse Child Breakfast
Horse child breakfast,
what are you doing to me?
with your long blonde legs?
with your long blonde face?
with your long blonde hair?
with your perfect blonde ass?
I swear I’ll never be the
same again!
Horse child breakfast,
what you’re doing to me,
I want done forever.
General Custer Versus the Titanic
For the soldiers of the Seventh Cavalry who were killed at the Little Bighorn River and the passengers who were lost on the maiden voyage of the Titanic.
God bless their souls.
Yes! it’s true all my visions
have come home to roost at last.
They are all true now and stand
around me like a bouquet of
lost ships and doomed generals.
I gently put them away in a
beautiful and disappearing vase.
The Beautiful Poem
I go to bed in Los Angeles thinking
about you.
Pissing a few moments ago
I looked down at my penis
affectionately.
Knowing it has been inside
you twice today makes me
feel beautiful.
3 A.M
January 15, 1967
Private Eye Lettuce
Three crates of Private Eye Lettuce,
the name and drawing of a detective
with magnifying glass on the sides
of the crates of lettuce,
form a great cross in man’s imagination
and his desire to name
the objects of this world.
I think I’ll call this place Golgotha
and have some salad for dinner.
A Boat
O beautiful
was the werewolf
in his evil forest.
We took him
to the carnival
and he started
crying
when he saw
the Ferris wheel.
Electric
green and red tears
flowed down
his furry cheeks.
He looked
like a boat
out on the dark
water.
The Shenevertakesherwatchoff Poem
For Marcia
Because you always have a clock
strapped to your body, it’s natural
that I should think of you as the
correct time:
with your long blonde hair at 8:03,
and your pulse-lightning breasts at
11:17, and your rose-meow smile at 5:30,
I know I’m right.
Karma Repair Kit: Items 1-4
Get enough food to eat,
and eat it.
Find a place to sleep where it is quiet,
and sleep there.
Reduce intellectual and emotional noise
until you arrive at the silence of yourself,
and listen to it.
Oranges
Oh, how perfect death
computes an orange wind
that glows from your footsteps,
and you stop to die in
an orchard where the harvest
fills the stars.
San Francisco
This poem was found written on a paper bag by Richard Brautigan in a laundromat in San Francisco. The author is unknown.
By accident, you put
Your money in my
Machine (#4)
By accident, I put
My money in another
Machine (#6)
On purpose, I put
Your clothes in the
Empty machine full
Of water and no
Clothes
It was lonely.
Xerox Candy Bar
Ah,
you’re just a copy
of all the candy bars
I’ve ever eaten.
Discovery
The petals of the vagina unfold
like Christopher Columbus
taking off his shoes.
Is there anything more beautiful
than the bow of a ship
touching a new world?
Widow’s Lament
It’s not quite cold enough
to go borrow some firewood
from the neighbors.
The Pomegranate Circus
I am desolate in dimension
circling the sky
like a rainy bird,
wet from toe to crown
wet from bill to wing.
I feel like a drowned king
at the pomegranate circus.
I vowed last
year
that I wouldn’t go again
but here I sit in my usual seat,
dripping and clapping
as the pomegranates go by
in their metallic costumes.
December 25, 1966
The Winos on Potrero Hill
Alas, they get
their bottles
from a small
neighborhood store.
The old Russian
sells them port
and passes no moral
judgment. They go
and sit under
the green bushes
that grow along
the wooden stairs.
They could almost
be exotic flowers,
they drink so
quietly.
The First Winter Snow
Oh, pretty girl, you have trapped
yourself in the wrong body. Twenty
extra pounds hang like a lumpy
tapestry on your perfect mammal nature.
Three months ago you were like a
deer staring at the first winter snow.
Now Aphrodite thumbs her nose at you
and tells stories behind your back.
Death Is a Beautiful Car Parked Only
for Emmett
Death is a beautiful car parked only
to be stolen on a street lined with trees
whose branches are like the intestines
of an emerald.
You hotwire death, get in, and drive away
like a flag made from a thousand burning
funeral parlors.
You have stolen death because you’re bored.
There’s nothing good playing at the movies
in San Francisco.
You joyride around for a while listening
to the radio, and then abandon death, walk
away, and leave death for the police
to find.
Surprise
I lift the toilet seat
as if it were the nest of a bird
and I see cat tracks
all around the edge of the bowl.
Your Departure Versus the Hindenburg
Every time we say good-bye
I see it as an extension of
the Hindenburg:
that great 1937 airship exploding
in medieval flames like a burning castle
above New Jersey.
When you leave the house, the
shadow of the Hindenburg enters
to take your place.
Education
There is a woman
on the Klamath River
who has five
hundred children
in the basement,
stuffed like
hornets into
a mud nest.
Great Sparrow
is their father.
Once a day
he pulls a
red wagon between
them and
that’s all
they know.
Love Poem
It’s so nice
to wake up in the morning
all alone
and not have to tell somebody
you love them
when you don’t love them
any more.
The Fever Monument
I walked across the park to the fever monument.
It was in the center of a glass square surrounded
by red flowers and fountains. The monument
was in the shape of a sea horse and the plaque read
We got hot and died.
At the California Institute of Technology
I don’t care how God-damn smart
these guys are: I’m bored.
It’s been raining like hell all day long
and there’s nothing to do.
Written January 24, 1967 while poet-in-residence at the California Institute of Technology.
A Lady
Her face grips at her mouth
like a leaf to a tree
or a tire to a highway
or a spoon to a bowl of soup.
She just can’t let go
the poor dear.
No matter what happens
her face is always a maple tree
Highway 101
tomato.
“Star-Spangled” Nails
You’ve got
some “Star-Spangled”
nails
in your coffin, kid.
That’s what
they’ve done for you,
son.
The Pumpkin Tide
I saw thousands of pumpkins last night
come floating in on the tide,
bumping up against the rocks and
rolling up on the beaches;
it must be Halloween in the sea.
Adrenalin Mother
Adrenalin Mother,
with your dress of comets
and shoes of swift bird wings
and shadow of jumping fish,
thank you for touching,
understanding and loving my life.
Without you, I am dead.
The Wheel
The wheel: it’s a thing like pears
rotting under a tree in August.
O golden wilderness!
The bees travel in covered wagons
and the Indians hide in the heat.
Map Shower
For Marcia
I want your hair
to cover me with maps
of new places,
so everywhere I go
will be as beautiful
as your hair.
A Postcard from Chinatown
The Chinese smoke opium
in their bathrooms.
They all get in the bathroom
and lock the door.
The old people sit in the tub
and the children sit
on the floor.
The Double-Bed Dream Gallows
Driving through
hot brushy country
in the late autumn,
I saw a hawk
crucified on a
barbed-wire fence.
I guess as a kind
of advertisement
to other hawks,
saying from the pages
of a leading women’s
magazine,
“She’s beautiful,
but burn all the maps
to your body.
I’m not here
of my own choosing.”
December 30
At 1:03 in the morning a fart
smells like a marriage between
an avocado and a fish head.
I have to get out of bed
to write this down without
my glasses on.
The Sawmill
I am the sawmill
abandoned even by the ghosts
in the middle of a pasture.
Opera!
Opera!
The horses won’t go near
my God-damn thing.
They stay over by the creek.
The Way She Looks at It
Every time I see him, I think:
Gee, am I glad he’s not
my old man.
Yes, the Fish Music
A trout-colored wind blows
through my eyes, through my fingers,
and I remember how the trout