Richard Brautigan

It's nightand a numbered beautylapses at the wind,
chortles with the branches of a tree, giggles,
plays shadow dancewith a dead kite,
cajoles affectionfrom falling leaves

Hinged to forgetfulness like a door, she slowly closed out of sight, and she was the woman I loved, but too many times she slept like a mechanical deer in my caresses, and I ached in the metal silence of her dreams.

I'm depressed,
haunted by melancholy
that does not have a reflection
nor cast a shadow.…

Pretend
is
a city
bigger…

It’s a star that looks
like a poker game above
the mountains of eastern
Oregon.…

SS
OR
UT
NG

If I were to live my life
in catfish forms
in scaffolds of skin and whiskers
at the bottom of a pond…

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
We got hot and died.

The sweet juices of your mouthare like castles bathed in honey.
I've never had it done so gently before.
You have put a circle of castlesaround my penis and you swirl themlike sunlight on the wings of birds.

The act of dying
is like hitch-hiking
into a strange town
late at night…

Хрупкая, увядшая в 37,
она носит обручальное кольцо словно в экстазе
и внимательно смотрит в пустую чашку кофе,
как если бы она смотрела в рот мёртвой птицы.…

Умирать —
это как автостопом
приехать ночью
в незнакомый город,…

The petals of the vagina unfoldlike Christopher Columbustaking off his shoes.
Is there anything more beautifulthan the bow of a shiptouching a new world?

Forsaken, fucking in the cold, eating each other, lost runny noses, complaining all the time like so many people that we know

I like to think (andthe sooner the better!)of a cybernetic meadowwhere mammals and computerslive together in mutuallyprogramming harmonylike pure watertouching clear sky.
I like to think(right now, please!)of a cybernetic forestfilled with…

At 1:30 in the morning a fart smells like a marriage betweenan avocado and a fish head.
I have to get out of bedto write this down withoutmy glasses on.

HE
CK
The creek was made narrow by little green trees that grewtoo close together.
The creek was like 12, 845 telephonebooths in a row with high Victorian ceilings and all the doorstaken off and all the backs of the booths knocked…

HE
SY OF
UT
NG IN

When you take your pill
it’s like a mine disaster.
I think of all the people
lost inside of you.

Ah,
you're just a copyof all the candy barsI've ever eaten.

I don't know what it is, but I distrust myself when I start to like a girl a lot. It makes me nervous. I don't say the right things or perhaps I start to examine, evaluate, compute what I am saying. If I say, "Do you think it's going to…

I feel horrible.
She doesn't love me and I wander aroundlike a sewing machinethat's just finished sewinga turd to a garbage can lid.

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.…

There are no postage stamps that send lettersback to England three centuries ago,
no postage stamps that make letterstravel back until the grave hasn't been dug yet,
and John Donne stands looking out the window,
it is just beginning…