Loading Mercury With a Pitchfork

Okay, I really didn't intent to write about poetry two days in a row, but Richard Brautigan's been on my mind. He's one of my favorite poets, partially because a lot of people think that he wasn't really a poet at all. Basically, his poems sound like prose, and his prose sounds like poetry. Here's one of my favorite Brautigan poems:

FUCK ME LIKE FRIED POTATOES

Fuck me like fried potatoes
on the most beautifully hungry
morning of my God-damn life.

Kinda hits you hard, doesn't it? Even if it's not your favorite kind of poetry, it really gets to the heart of things. In a few lines, he just plain nails the intensity of sex, the way it can be so sustaining.

Here's another one:

EVERYTHING INCLUDES US

The thought of her hands
touching his hair
makes me want to vomit.

Not the prettiest poem ever; again, though, it really hits that feeling you get when a relationship ends. The nausea, the hurt, the feeling that you really want to let it go, but can't.

While we're on the subject of relationships,

IMPASSE

I talked a good hello
but she talked an even
better good-bye.

You ever been there? I can't imagine a better way to put that feeling.

Okay, here's one more:

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."

That one just makes me laugh.

Anyway, all of these come from one of his collections, Loading Mercury with a Pitchfork, but you can find many of his poems here. Maybe, like me, you won't enjoy him at first, but will find that he sticks in your brain, like a catchy commercial or one of Barry Manilow's songs. You might find yourself playing with his words and giggling at his intensity. I hope so.

Giving Thanks

After a Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat, I was wandering around a couple of my favorite blogs today and I took a peek at Claudia's. She put up a copy of Alice's Restaurant, by Arlo Guthrie, and it relaxed me, brought back some good memories, and generally put a smile on my face.

It also reminded me of a couple of my favorite American poets. One of them is Shel Silverstein. If you only know him from Where the Sidewalk Ends and The Giving Tree, then you're really missing out. Silverstein was also a prolific lyricist (he wrote "A Boy Named Sue"), and writer of adult poetry, much of which was published in Playboy. If you're interested in reading some of his adult offerings, click here. You should particularly check out "The Devil and Billy Markham"; although it's lighthearted, I think it ranks with "Young Goodman Brown" and "The Devil and Daniel Webster." Best of all, it's funny as hell. Funnier, actually.

In the meantime, here's one of my favorites. I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

"Father of a Boy Named Sue"

Yeah, I lef’ home when the kid was three.
It sure felt good to be fancy free
Tho I knew it wasn’t quite the fatherly thing to do.
But that kid kept screamin’ and throwin’ up
And pissin’ in his pants til I had enough
So just for revenge I went and named him Sue.

It was Gatlinberg in mid July
I was gettin' drunk but gettin' by
Gettin' old and going from bad to worse
When thru the door with an awful scream
Comes the ugliest queen I’ve ever seen
He says my name is Sue. How do you do?
Then he hits me with his purse.

Now this ain’t the way he tells the tale
But he scratched my face with his fingernails
And then he bit my thumb
and kicked me with his high-heeled shoe.
So I hit him in the nose, and he started to cry
And he threw some perfume in my eye
And it sure ain’t easy fightin with a boy named Sue.

So I hit him in the head with a caned-back chair
And he screamed, “Hey Dad, you mussed my hair!”
And he hit me in the navel and knocked out a piece of my lint.
He was spittin' blood. I was spittin teeth.
And we crashed through the wall and out into the street
A-kickin and gougin' in the mud and the blood and the crème de menth.

Then out of his garter he pulls a gun.
I’m about to get shot by my very own son.
He’s screamin' about Sigmond Freud and lookin' grim.
So I thought fast and I told him some stuff
How I named him Sue just to make him tough.
And I guess he bought it, cuz now I’m livin' with him.
Yeah, he cooks and sews and cleans up the place.
He cuts my hair and shaves my face.
And irons my shirts better than a daughter could do.
And on the nights that I can’t score,
Well, I can’t tell you anymore.
Sure is a joy to have a boy named Sue.
Yeah, a son is fun,
But it’s a joy to have a boy named Sue.