"brautigan" poems
I have a 75 watt, glare free, long life
Harmony House light bulb in my toilet.
I have been living in the same apartment
for over two years now
and that bulb just keeps burning away.
I believe that it is fond of me.
- Richard Brautigan
Apr 30, 2014
Apr 30, 2014 at 1:04 PM UTC
One day
Time will die
And love will bury it.
- Richard Brautigan
Apr 30, 2014
Apr 30, 2014 at 12:44 PM UTC
I have emotions
that are like newspapers that
read themselves.
I go for days at a time
trapped in the want ads.
I feel as if I am an ad
for the sale of a haunted house:
18 rooms
$37,000
I’m yours
ghosts and all.
- Richard Brautigan
Aug 1, 2014
Aug 1, 2014 at 3:19 PM UTC
Let's lie in our bed
Among pillows and threads
Wear your hair on my head, as a crown
Borne of Brautigan's dreams
Rainbow trouts in the stream
Watermelon moonbeams trickle down
Dec 23, 2016
Dec 23, 2016 at 10:21 AM UTC
I recently read
that Brautigan's last manuscipt
had small pieces
of his brain matter
stuck to the paper
which got there
after he blew his brains out,
and today
after I had written a poem,
I had an insight
into the mind
of Brautigan.
It made me cry.
Brautigan was a poet
who wrote tender, funny,
light poetry
which I always thought
had something
underneath it
which was deep and profound.
I found out
that a poet like Bruatigan
or me
had a deep
despair, anguish, depression,
suffering, and pain
which lay underneath
this light, funny poetry.
When he died,
I bought
as many books by him
as I could find
and laid them
on a table
and lit a candle.
Feb 10, 2013
Feb 10, 2013 at 2:44 PM UTC
he read Brautigan
and thus would say all this is juvenile
and not real
he was real in a ***** brown sweater he wore
every day I knew him that smelled like menthols
and sweat and dope (he called it dope
sometimes because Bukowski did and he
read Bukowski too)
of course
he was real in his Catholic school
sports coat and fresh face once
without the 5-day beard he took to
wearing as a **** you to the system and other
real things like that which he sang
about on his guitar with a hole
in the bottom
the one he found in a
second hand store just like he always dreamed
he would and they would make sweet sad
music (that high and lonesome sound)
together forever he wrote his
poems to the tune of its steel strings
when he would sit at home at night and get
high and lonesome too
and so would I
because he thought I was ugly but didn't know
how to say it so he let me tag along for a few years
and let me sing in my off key death rattle
and lent me Brautigan and Bukowski
so I could know what was real and not real
but I didn’t learn my lesson so well
now did I?
Jan 6, 2013
Jan 6, 2013 at 1:06 PM UTC
Shenevertakesherwatchoff Poem
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 ******* at
11:17, and your rose-meow smile at 5:30,
I know I'm right
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--
May 12, 2015
May 12, 2015 at 5:39 PM UTC
To the many readers, I ****** off with my poem about Bukowski.
I don't loathe Bukowski. My point is that he is a cult writer. His cult seems to be made up of people who are ignorant of other much better writers of his time. If they read the Beats (in particular Gary Snyder) or others like Richard Brautigan, Jim Harrison, Wendell Berry and many others, they would see how poorly his writing stands up to comparison.
Bukowski's persona is what seems to attract people. He knew that and cultivated it. It was his meal ticket. The poor, drunken, uncouth, outsider, loser who was scorned by the literati of his time. In truth, he was a writer of pulp poetry. What he needed was a good editor. You could take all of his books of poems, cut out the rambling, self-serving, tedious, self-glorifying ******** and cut them down to maybe two books of decent poetry. His prose is better, but not that much.
Young people, lacking better poetry for comparison, are mainly attracted by this cult of personality. Young people are attracted to rebels, even bogus ones. He himself said he didn't write, he just typed. Some hero.
He portrays himself as a big, tough *** willing to fight the whole world. Actually, he was a fat drunk barely six feet tall. That's why I laughed at him when he threatened me. I was 20, just three weeks back from Vietnam. The thought of fighting an old drunk seemed pathetic to me. I could have easily killed him. Who goes to a poetry reading for that?
There was also his attitude toward women. I believe he really hated women. He saw them as receptacles for his ***** nothing more. He used his fame to **** a good many young admirers. He's not alone in having done that, but he was obsessive about it. Women were a perk, nothing more.
In the end, his cult status will remain, but he will never be taken seriously as a writer, because - by his own admission - he wasn't. There is much excellent poetry out there by better writers of his time. Do yourself a favor, read them, educate yourself. If you only read mediocre poetry, you'll only ever be a mediocre poet.
Even at his most unheroic, he is the hero of his stories and poems, always demanding the reader’s covert approval. That is why he is so easy to love, especially for novice readers with little experience of the genuine challenges of poetry; and why, for more demanding readers, he remains so hard to admire.
Please: Join in. Tell me why I am wrong or right.
Mike Essig
Jan 20, 2016
Jan 20, 2016 at 4:28 AM UTC
**Gee, You’re So Beautiful
That It’s Starting to Rain**
Oh, Marcia,
I want your long blonde beauty
to be taught in high school,
so kids will learn that God
lives like music in the skin
and sounds like a sunshine harpsichord.
I want high school report cards
to look like this:
Playing with Gentle Glass Things
A
Computer Magic
A
Writing Letters to Those You Love
A
Finding out about Fish
A
Marcia’s Long Blonde Beauty
A+!
Apr 21, 2015
Apr 21, 2015 at 7:10 PM UTC
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.
Apr 15, 2015
Apr 15, 2015 at 9:05 PM UTC
I wonder why poets are sad.
Is poetry salvation from misery?
Or is everyone sad?
And maybe we only notice it in the people who write:
Sylvia Plath.
Virginia Woolf.
Charlotte Mew.
So many.
Is poetry just cathartic?
Do people not write about happiness because it has no effect?
Or are they afraid of happiness?
Sara Teasdale.
Anne Sexton.
Richard Brautigan.
Why so many?
Does writing poetry cause sadness?
Because one must reflect on misery to create emotive poems?
Or do sad people write poetry as a form of release?
Humans are addicted to sadness-
Are poets more so?
Are poets the most emotionally intelligent of humanity?
Or are they merely able to describe them?
Us readers feed off the misery of them.
Our creative fuel originates from the pain of poets.
I wonder why poets are sad.
May 29, 2015
May 29, 2015 at 11:46 AM UTC
For a poet
they are
necessary angels.
Poems do not
leap complete
from the head
like Zeus'
Children.
They are built
like cathedrals,
apprentice
and master,
practicing craft,
keen-eyed
over centuries.
Mine are the poets
I have read,
studied, dissected
and read again
and again
over 40 years.
Gary Snyder,
Richard Brautigan,
Leonard Cohen,
Wendell Berry,
Jim Harrison
and far too many more,
but just as important,
to name.
Eventually,
from their voices
came my voice.
Make your own list,
invite them over.
They will never tire
of teaching you.
If you are diligent
and listen closely,
you will learn
the craft
and sing in the voice
you belong to.
Hard work, learning,
practice and devotion:
all it takes to be a poet.
~mce
Apr 11, 2015
Apr 11, 2015 at 7:28 AM UTC
Spelling out a new human inventory
Thinkin’, I’m glad there are still folks round like that.
Whether I am like that and whether you are like that
Don’t seem much to matter.
It also doesn’t matter what you fill balloons with,
So long as it’s lighter than air,
Or so long as you’re sitting somewhere good and high up.
Apr 28, 2014
Apr 28, 2014 at 10:03 PM UTC
Karma Repair Kit Items 1-4
1.Get enough food to eat,
and eat it.
2.Find a place to sleep where it is quiet,
and sleep there.
3.Reduce intellectual and emotional noise
until you arrive at the silence of yourself,
and listen to it.
4.
Apr 24, 2015
Apr 24, 2015 at 4:55 PM UTC
I bought a beer,
twice,
for Richard Brautigan
in 1972
at Thomas Lord's bar
on Union Street
in San Francisco.
Each time,
he was already drunk:
this is what
the literary life
means.
-mce
Apr 4, 2015
Apr 4, 2015 at 4:04 PM UTC
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.
Apr 25, 2015
Apr 25, 2015 at 10:48 AM UTC
a trail of ink spills
past lanterns & statues
on the bridge.
orange flares streak across
your glasses; it is true night now.
if truth is forgotten, who
will weave our amnesia?
not I, or you, nor the one
whose fiction we follow
into the forgotten works.
Jan 28, 2016
Jan 28, 2016 at 2:46 PM UTC
It's so sad
That I can't always kiss you in the morning,
Can't kiss you goodnight either.
And sometimes it is pretty hard
To wake you up with a smell of coffee.
Alas, I can't always do any of that.
But what I can do is kiss you
In your dreams.
Feb 2, 2020
Feb 2, 2020 at 9:27 AM UTC
Some words
in proper combination
and just-so order
contain light
but only light for certain eyes
and maybe only at certain times
light like no other
light for parents
whose children scream
or fall silent
light for sisters
who have lost sisters
light for the desperate and lonely
light for men drowning drink by drink
for the girl not taken to the dance
and the boy lacking courage
to ask her
light for the surgeon who failed
light for the bored housewife
contemplating escape
light for the third child
of a forgotten family
seeking shelter
in a dead city
Light for the wounded of the earth
and the lost
Some words are holy
though you are unlikely to find them in scripture
Some words staunch the bleeding
Sometimes these words
are lightning
sometimes thunder
sometimes a breeze across the ages
And I have lived my life for these words
in their pursuit and service
Come Hemingway
Come Faulkner
Come Hannah
Come Bukowski
Come Caldwell
Come Carver
Come Lee
Come the unknown genius who knows the mysteries of my heart
Come you thick Russians
Come Borges
Come Bradbury
Come Brautigan
Come Welty
Come Brown
Come light
Come, always, light
Some words
in proper combination
can save your soul
can teach you its pits and textures
And we are all ****** and bleeding and words are what hope is made from
And some words
are what remain of heaven
when angels give way
and sometimes
they are enough
Apr 29, 2018
Apr 29, 2018 at 10:52 AM UTC
"I am here
and you are distant."
The essential sadness
of those words
seizes the heart
of loneliness.
Here/distant:
the kernel
of so much despair
and poetry.
- mce
Apr 4, 2015
Apr 4, 2015 at 5:20 PM UTC
WHEN DEATH COMES, IT WILL HAVE YOUR EYES
(Verrà la morte e avrà i tuoi occhi )
I once knew a man
who knew a man
who had seen
F. Scott Fitzgerald
drinking a milkshake
in a drug store
(vanilla or chocolate
he couldn't be sure)
flicking idly
through a magazine
( no he didn't know
which magazine )
in the company of
some blonde.
"I'll never forget
what he said!"
"Let's go to the supermarket
Shelia!" he said.
And that's it?
"That's it!"
His voice caressed
each syllable
as if
he were on stage.
But he was like a man
becoming a manakin
like in that episode of
The Twilight Zone
you know the one?"
In a future that had as yet
to happen.
"I don't know what I had
expected..."
The man who knew the man
who knew the man
who had seen and heard
F. Scott Fitzgerald.
"Maybe a Gatsby or
a Gatsby
who had survived the novel's
tragic ending
and wished
he hadn't!"
***
Here now
at home
Mr. Fitzgerald
sits in his armchair
eating a chocolate bar
checking out next year's
Princeton
football team.
suddenly like a puppet
yanked on a string
he stands up
hand on mantlepiece
like some bad acting
in a silent movie
before falling
to the floor.
He will never
get up.
***
Nick and Gatsby come
stand by his dying.
So do Monroe Stahr
and Kathleen Moore
even though
words fail them.
Yet they now
more real than he.
Monroe reads
some last scribbled lines.
"There was a flutter
from the wings of God
and you
lay dead.
Your books
were in your desk I guess
and some unfinished chaos
in your head
was dumped to nothing
by the great janitress of
destinies."
Gatsby
closes his eyes.
***
WHEN DEATH COMES, IT WILL HAVE YOUR EYES(Verrà la morte e avrà i tuoi occhi )is of course the wonderful poem by Cesare Pavese.
Monroe and Kathleen are from Scott's last and unfinished novel THE LAST TYCOON.
I also knew a guy who knew a guy who peed beside Richard Brautigan. He was so in awe as to who was at the next ****** that he peed all over the top of his shoes.
Jul 26, 2021
Jul 26, 2021 at 7:11 PM UTC
WHEN DEATH COMES, IT WILL HAVE YOUR EYES
(Verrà la morte e avrà i tuoi occhi )
I once knew a man
who knew a man
who had seen
F. Scott Fitzgerald
drinking a milkshake
in a drug store
(vanilla or chocolate
he couldn't be sure)
flicking idly
through a magazine
( no he didn't know
which magazine )
in the company of
some blonde.
"I'll never forget
what he said!"
"Let's go to the supermarket
Shelia!" he said.
And that's it?
"That's it!"
His voice caressed
each syllable
as if
he were on stage.
But he was like a man
becoming a manakin
like in that episode of
The Twilight Zone
you know the one?"
In a future that had as yet
to happen.
"I don't know what I had
expected..."
The man who knew the man
who knew the man
who had seen and heard
F. Scott Fitzgerald.
"Maybe a Gatsby or
a Gatsby
who had survived the novel's
tragic ending
and wished
he hadn't!"
***
Here now
at home
Mr. Fitzgerald
sits in his armchair
eating a chocolate bar
checking out next year's
Princeton
football team.
suddenly like a puppet
yanked on a string
he stands up
hand on mantlepiece
like some bad acting
in a silent movie
before falling
to the floor.
He will never
get up.
***
Nick and Gatsby come
stand by his dying.
So do Monroe Stahr
and Kathleen Moore
even though
words fail them.
Yet they now
more real than he.
Monroe reads
some last scribbled lines.
"There was a flutter
from the wings of God
and you
lay dead.
Your books
were in your desk I guess
and some unfinished chaos
in your head
was dumped to nothing
by the great janitress of
destinies."
Gatsby
closes his eyes.
***
WHEN DEATH COMES, IT WILL HAVE YOUR EYES(Verrà la morte e avrà i tuoi occhi )is of course the wonderful poem by Cesare Pavese.
Monroe and Kathleen are from Scott's last and unfinished novel THE LAST TYCOON.
I also knew a guy who knew a guy who peed beside Richard Brautigan. He was so in awe as to who was at the next ****** that he peed all over the top of his shoes.
Jul 25, 2022
Jul 25, 2022 at 5:31 PM UTC