Turn me sudden
where I may touch
this figure in so
much twist. I hate
sweet, heavy & flowered.
from page 668 of Fear and Loathing in America: The Brutal Odyssey of an Outlaw Journalist, 1968-1976 by Hunter S. Thompson (Simon & Schuster, 2000).
Maybe the days have ends,
the possibility of some strange
intelligence that appeared
in a supermarket.
The point is, I don’t
dare question the cookbook.
from page 391 of Fear and Loathing in America: The Brutal Odyssey of an Outlaw Journalist, 1968-1976 by Hunter S. Thompson (Simon & Schuster, 2000).
I lost arrogance,
an insult to adventure.
All assurance that I am now
saying what I have been
trying to, that first night
I was swimming.
I wasn’t lost.
from page 222 of Fear and Loathing in America: The Brutal Odyssey of an Outlaw Journalist, 1968-1976 by Hunter S. Thompson (Simon & Schuster, 2000).
The spine is tape
& outline committed
to habit. The tendency
to keep movement reached
for me and left my
head cut from reality.
from page 718 of Fear and Loathing in America: The Brutal Odyssey of an Outlaw Journalist, 1968-1976 by Hunter S. Thompson (Simon & Schuster, 2000).
Necessary is the iceberg
so severe and wholly
alive for one, nearly arrested
face about to sense the dream
of June in New York.
from page 90 of Fear and Loathing in America: The Brutal Odyssey of an Outlaw Journalist, 1968-1976 by Hunter S. Thompson (Simon & Schuster, 2000).
Consider the grass
is thinking whether
to try fire or stone
as salvage for the
American life.
The future I see,
is a hunter.
from page 336 of Fear and Loathing in America: The Brutal Odyssey of an Outlaw Journalist, 1968-1976 by Hunter S. Thompson (Simon & Schuster, 2000).
Calling me
to this winter
I know I’ll take
the bright mornings.
The tree I owe
an obsession
of honesty.
I can’t prove
I’ve abandoned
my life.
from page 184 of Fear and Loathing in America: The Brutal Odyssey of an Outlaw Journalist, 1968-1976 by Hunter S. Thompson (Simon & Schuster, 2000).
The awful rumor that I might assume
death comes from an owl. How does
winter aim me with spark like
the mechanics of a crow. I don’t
remember everything I’ve done
as complicated, despite all the reasons.
from pages 92-93 of Fear and Loathing in America: The Brutal Odyssey of an Outlaw Journalist, 1968-1976 by Hunter S. Thompson (Simon & Schuster, 2000).
Now seems sure with my face
already a refused arrow.
I can’t explain soon as a
threat about love. I was
a spectator of all things
I could steal—anything
that might bring me together.
from pages 515-516 of Fear and Loathing in America: The Brutal Odyssey of an Outlaw Journalist, 1968-1976 by Hunter S. Thompson (Simon & Schuster, 2000).
True the skull
is a movie,
both saying and
stealing from me.
All I have is this
argument, where I
remain a theory,
ever and no more.
from pages 542-543 of Fear and Loathing in America: The Brutal Odyssey of an Outlaw Journalist, 1968-1976 by Hunter S. Thompson (Simon & Schuster, 2000).
I gave up ugly and
housewife in my
married thought.
I was delirious around
myself and husband.
I heard the rumor
of the future Mrs.
had hunt down carcasses
of handbooks on rules.
from pages 72-73 of Fear and Loathing in America: The Brutal Odyssey of an Outlaw Journalist, 1968-1976 by Hunter S. Thompson (Simon & Schuster, 2000).
I once twisted
like trouble and sound.
I lost the answer
to how those flies make perfect
riots in atmosphere and evidence.
from pages 104-105 of Fear and Loathing in America: The Brutal Odyssey of an Outlaw Journalist, 1968-1976 by Hunter S. Thompson (Simon & Schuster, 2000).
Revise tonight—
struggling with the temptation to wire
sounds to the heart of one fucked thing.
I tried to get over the grey, deadweight
of thought and discovered the whirl of my hands
which could have agreed to be more than my own.
from pages 20-21 of Fear and Loathing in America: The Brutal Odyssey of an Outlaw Journalist, 1968-1976 by Hunter S. Thompson (Simon & Schuster, 2000).
January came as a demand.
Nothing except the kitchen lived.
Here in winter, I found every
compulsion left me cool.
from pages 258-259 of Fear and Loathing in America: The Brutal Odyssey of an Outlaw Journalist, 1968-1976 by Hunter S. Thompson (Simon & Schuster, 2000).
For whom the beginning is
bent but full of fire, the
future is appearances.
I don’t ever get that far.
I like the other option of
Ann Arbor in Spring.
from pages 662-663 of Fear and Loathing in America: The Brutal Odyssey of an Outlaw Journalist, 1968-1976 by Hunter S. Thompson (Simon & Schuster, 2000).
Dear midnight—
maybe I could tell you your
head’s a little heavy.
Reminiscent of my own
that will take rather than decide.
I refuse to destroy the skeleton
of light your hands sent.
from pages 312-313 of Fear and Loathing in America: The Brutal Odyssey of an Outlaw Journalist, 1968-1976 by Hunter S. Thompson (Simon & Schuster, 2000).
Expect I’ve gone
to dinner with a particularly
pleased pig and a goddamned
neglect for desire.
Whether I
smile when
I’m not
thinking doesn’t
depend on joy.
What to do
with all the
teeth so it
looks like choice.
from pages 80-81 of Fear and Loathing in America: The Brutal Odyssey of an Outlaw Journalist, 1968-1976 by Hunter S. Thompson (Simon & Schuster, 2000).
I disagree with the mirror—the flat
details never existed as a nervous misinterpretation.
I’m hunting for the lost aspects of my presence— in wonder
for what I’ve discarded.
from pages 26-27 of Fear and Loathing in America: The Brutal Odyssey of an Outlaw Journalist, 1968-1976 by Hunter S. Thompson (Simon & Schuster, 2000).
Since the death of me, I can’t escape
the chain-saw of possibilities that sit and watch
my vision like a pretty poison flowered.
I began young and can’t change those memories.
from pages 132-133 of Fear and Loathing in America: The Brutal Odyssey of an Outlaw Journalist, 1968-1976 by Hunter S. Thompson (Simon & Schuster, 2000).
Back where
I began
to witness the city
as a hotel I
wouldn’t go to—
the reality thirty years did
to me with no permission
to elevate the part I could tell
without mercy.
from pages 158-159 of Fear and Loathing in America: The Brutal Odyssey of an Outlaw Journalist, 1968-1976 by Hunter S. Thompson (Simon & Schuster, 2000).