Rommel Drives on Deep Into Egypt

by Richard Brautigan

March 16, 1969

  We Stopped at Perfect Days

  We stopped at perfect days

  and got out of the car.

  The wind glanced at her hair.

  It was as simple as that.

  I turned to say something—

  Chosen by Beauty to Be a Handmaiden of the Stars

  Chosen by beauty to be a handmaiden of the stars,

  she passes like a silver brush

  across the lens of a telescope.

  She brushes the stars, the galaxies

  and the light-years into the order that

  we know them.

  30 Cents, Two Transfers, Love

  Thinking hard about you

  I got onto the bus

  and paid 30 cents car fare

  and asked the driver for

  two transfers

  before discovering that I

  was alone.

  Please

  Do you think of me

  as often as I think

  of you?

  There Is Darkness on Your Lantern

  There is darkness on your lantern

  and pumpkins in your wind,

  and Oh, they clutter up your mind

  with their senseless bumping

  while your heart is like a sea gull

  frozen into a long distance telephone

  call.

  I’d like to take the darkness

  off your lantern and change the pumpkins

  into sky fields of ordered comets

  and disconnect the refrigerator telephone

  that frightens your heart into standing

  still.

  Professional, Nonoffensive, Bland

  The gunman holds the wind

  in his hand.

  Autumn and spring pass like robberies

  across his eyes.

  He doesn’t blink while one stops leaves

  and the other starts them.

  The gunman is a friend to the changing

  of the seasons.

  He holds the wind in his hand.

  Cellular Coyote

  He’s howling in the pines

  at the edge of your fingerprints.

  Parking Omelet

  Walking on crow eggs, mama,

  listening to the shells break

  like cars being parked on

  asphalt.

  Yeah, There Was Always Going to Be a June 5, 1968

  My telephone rang in the middle of the night,

  but I didn’t answer it. It rang and rang

  and rang and SHUT UP! and rang as if it were

  possessed.

  I always figure that good news doesn’t travel

  in the middle of the night, so I didn’t answer

  the telephone.

  I let it go to hell. I was right, too.

  It was somebody calling to tell me that Kennedy

  had been hit.

  Lemon Lard

  Lemon Lard: with your odd snowshoes

  and your ability to remember dates,

  you’re all that you’ll ever want to

  be.

  Just an Ordinary Girl, 118

  Just an ordinary girl, 118

  pounds, chipped front tooth, cute,

  born in Reno, Nevada, a student

  at SF State, she wants candles

  married to her womb by the color

  of a telescopic saint, so that all

  her children will be adventures

  in light.

  Restaurant

  Fragile, fading 37,

  she wears her wedding ring like a trance

  and stares straight down at an empty coffee cup

  as if she were looking into the mouth of a dead bird.

  Dinner is over. Her husband has gone to the toilet.

  He will be back soon and then it will be her turn

  to go to the toilet.

  It Was Your Idea to Go to Bed with Her

  Snowflaked as if by an invisible polar bear

  —unlucky bastard,

  you’re sitting on the fender of her kisses

  while she drives the car down into the

  perfect center of ice.

  April 7, 1969

  I feeI so bad today

  that I want to write a poem.

  I don’t care: any poem, this

  poem.

  Shellfish

  Always spend a penny

  as if you were spending a

  dollar

  and always spend a dollar

  as if you were spending

  a wounded eagle and always

  spend a wounded eagle as if

  you were spending the very

  sky itself.

  A Closet Freezes

  In a room that knows your death

  a closet freezes like a postage stamp.

  A coat, a dress is hanging there.

  Late Starting Dawn

  It’s a late starting dawn that breathes my vision,

  inhales and exhales the sound of waking birds

  and pokes ten miles of cold gray sky at a deer

  standing alone in a meadow.

  A Witch and a 6 Pack of Double Century Ale

  A witch and a 6 pack of Double Century Ale

  that’s what I want to do on a rainy winter night

  at her place.

  Flight Handbook

  He wants to fly,

  sitting next to me on the bus,

  reading a copy of Flight Handbook.

  He has one of the largest

  thumbnails I’ve ever seen.

  As he dreams of bird-like mannerisms,

  I stare at his thumb.

  Mouths That Kissed in the Hot Ashes of Pompeii

  Mouths that kissed

  in the hot ashes of Pompeii

  are returning

  and eyes that could adore their beloved only

  in the fires of Pompeii

  are returning

  and locked bodies that squirmed in ecstasy

  in the lava of Pompeii

  are returning

  and lovers who found their perfect passion

  in the death of Pompeii

  are returning,

  and they’re letting themselves in

  again with the names of your sons

  and your daughters.

  The Elbow of a Dead Duck

  A transparent bridge across

  the elbow of a dead duck

  beckons, friends, like a boiled

  radio station

  toward a better understanding

  of yourself in these crisis-ridden

  times.

  Diet

  Pretty: except for the

  puncture bruises pn her

  arm. Also, she’s a little

  thin.

  The Alarm-Colored Shadow of a Frightened Ant

  The alarm-colored shadow of a frightened ant

  wants to make friends with you, learn all about

  your childhood, cry together, come live with

  you.

  Cameo Turret

  That’s where I

  see your face,

  baby, on a tank

  all around the

  cannon.

  33-1/3 Sized Lions

  33-1/3 sized

  lions are roaring at the black gates of Fame

  with jaws that look like record company courtesans

  brushing their teeth

  with would-be rock and roll stars

  in motel bathrooms

  with a perfect view of hot car roofs

  in the just-signed-up

  afternoon.

  The Virgo Grace of Your Ways Versus This Poem

  Hilda,

  I keep wanting to write a poem

  in praise of your beautiful energy

  and because I like the Virgo grace

  of your ways.

  Funky as it is: I’m sorry,

  forgive me, I guess this is

  that poem.


  A Lyrical Want, an Endocrine Gland Fancy

  A lyrical want, an endocrine gland fancy,

  a telescope that I thought had no thorns

  have led me to a pain that I cannot pronounce.

  It gathers around me like a convention of translators

  for a language that does not exist with all those

  meetings to attend.

  The Moon Versus Us Ever Sleeping Together Again

  I sit here, an arch-villain of romance,

  thinking about you. Gee, I’m sorry

  I made you unhappy, but there was nothing

  I could do about it because I have to be free.

  Perhaps everything would have been different

  if you had stayed at the table or asked me

  to go out with you to look at the moon,

  instead of getting up and leaving me alone with

  her.

  Vampire

  SIow/dark. . . black/seeming

  approach:

  a plant by an open window

  January 17

  Drinking wine this afternoon

  I realize the days are getting

  longer.

  Too Many Lifetimes like This One, Right?

  Too many lifetimes like this one, right?

  Hungover, surrounded by general goofiness,

  lonely, can’t get it up, I feel just like

  a pile of bleached cat shit.

  Color as Beginning

  Forget love

  I want to die

  in your yellow

  hair.

  In Her Sweetness Where She Folds My Wounds

  In her sweetness where she folds my wounds

  there is a flower that bees cannot afford.

  It is too rich for them and would change

  their wings into operas and all their honey

  into the lonesome maps of a nonexistent

  California county.

  When she has finished folding all my wounds

  she puts them away in a dresser where the

  drawers smell like the ghost of a bicycle.

  Afterwards I rage at her: demanding that her

  affections always be constant to my questions.

  Up against the Ivory Tower

  I’m sitting here (at a cafe) thinking

  about writing a poem. What will I write

  about? I don’t know. I just feel like it

  when suddenly a young man in a hurry

  walks up to me and says, “Can I use your

  pen?”

  There’s an envelope in his hand. “I want

  to address this.” He takes my pen

  and addresses the envelope. He’s very serious

  about it. He’s really using the

  pen.

  All Secrets of Past Tense Have just Come My Way

  All secrets of past tense have just come my way,

  but I still don’t know what I’n1 going to do

  next.

  Melting Ice Cream at the Edge of Your Final Thought

  Oh well, call it a

  life.

  My Concern for Your Tomato Plants

  l stare at your tomato plants.

  You’re not, I’m not pleased with the way

  they are growing.

  I try to think of ways to help them.

  I study them. What do I know about tomatoes?

  “Perhaps some nitrate,” I suggest.

  But I don’t know anything and now I’ve taken

  to gossiping about them. I’m as shameless

  as their lack of growing.

  “88” Poems

  Pity the Morning Light That Refuses to Wait for Dawn

  Pity the morning light

  that refuses to wait for dawn

  and rushes foolishly

  with its mercury pride

  to challenge a responsibility

  that knows only triumph

  and gently bends the stars

  to lit its will and cleans up

  afterwards all that poor

  wasted light, leaving not

  a trace behind.

  Snow Makes Me Sad

  Flying East today first to Chicago,

  then North Carolina snow makes me sad

  below in the mountains of the West.

  It is a white sadness that rises

  from California, Nevada, Utah

  and Colorado to visit the airplane,

  to sit here beside me like a snowy 1943

  map of my childhood.

  As the Bruises Fade, the Lightning Aches

  As the bruises fade, the lightning aches.

  Last week, making love, you bit me.

  Now the blue and dark have gone

  and yellow bruises grow toward pale daffodils,

  then paler to become until my body

  is all my own and what that ever got me.

  I Am Summoned by a Door

  l am summoned by a door

  but forgotten by the knock

  and left standing here alone

  in a long silent hall, like

  a marble intestine, that knows

  my name.

  At Last Our Bodies Coincide

  At last our bodies coincide.

  I’ll bet you thought this

  would never happen. Neither

  did I. It’s a pleasant

  surprise.

  Let Us Please Learn New Words That Mean As Much As Direction

  Let us please learn new words that mean as much

  as direction: wife.

  Deer Tracks

  Beautiful, sobbing, high-geared fucking

  and then to lie silently like deer tracks

  in the freshly-fallen snow beside the one

  you love. That’s all.

  Table of Contents

  ROMMEL DRIVES ON DEEP INTO EGYPT:

  ROMMEL DRIVES ON DEEP INTO EGYPT

  A 48-Year-Old Burglar from San Diego

  Have You Ever Had a Witch Bloom like a Highway

  The Memoirs of Jesse James

  Flora Shakespeare

  15%

  Romeo and Juliet

  Have You Ever Felt like a Wounded Cow

  Mrs. Myrtle Tate, Movie Projectionist

  Critical Can Opener

  Love’s Not the Way to Treat a Friend

  The Net Wt. of Winter Is 6.75 Ozs.

  Abalone Curry

  Cannibal Carpenter

  Sheep

  Donner Party

  Formal Portrait

  —2

  The Sister Cities of Los Alamos, New Mexico, and Hiroshima, Japan

  Wood

  Negative Clank

  Jules Verne Zucchini

  She Sleeps this very Evening in Greenbrook Castle

  Third Eye

  You’ll Have to Buy Some More Chairs

  Feasting and Drinking Went on Far into the Night

  1891-1944

  Hinged to Forgetfulness like a Door

  Affectionate Light Bulb

  Just Because

  The History of Bolivia

  Wildwood Shadow

  Propelled by Portals Whose Only Shame

  Clad in Garments like a Silver Disease

  Lions Are Growing like Yellow Roses on the Wind

  Nice Ass

  Casablanca

  8 Millimeter

  At the Earliest Dark Answer

  All Girls Should Have a Poem

  We Stopped at Perfect Days

  Chosen by Beauty to Be a Handmaiden of the Stars

  30 Cents, Two Transfers, Love

  Please

  There Is Darkness on Your Lantern

  Professional, Nonoffensive, Bland

  Cellular Coyote

  Parking Omelet

  Yeah, There Was Always Going to Be a June 5, 1968

  Lemon Lard

  Just an Ordinary Girl, 118

  Restaurant

  It Was Your Idea to Go to Bed with Her

  April 7, 1969
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  Shellfish

  A Closet Freezes

  Late Starting Dawn

  A Witch and a 6 Pack of Double Century Ale

  Flight Handbook

  Mouths That Kissed in the Hot Ashes of Pompeii

  The Elbow of a Dead Duck

  Diet

  The Alarm-Colored Shadow of a Frightened Ant

  Cameo Turret

  33-1/3 Sized Lions

  The Virgo Grace of Your Ways Versus This Poem

  A Lyrical Want, an Endocrine Gland Fancy

  The Moon Versus Us Ever Sleeping Together Again

  Vampire

  January 17

  Too Many Lifetimes like This One, Right?

  Color as Beginning

  In Her Sweetness Where She Folds My Wounds

  Up against the Ivory Tower

  All Secrets of Past Tense Have just Come My Way

  Melting Ice Cream at the Edge of Your Final Thought