Richard Brautigan: Poetry

Poetry

Richard Brautigan published ten volumes of poetry, as well as several individual poems.

As an author, Brautigan is noted for his poetry which often turns dramatically on unconventional but vivid images powered by imagination, strange and detailed observational metaphors, humor, and satire, all presented in a seemingly simplistic, childlike manner.

By his own account, this expertise was a difficult achievement.

I love writing poetry but it's taken time, like a difficult courtship that leads to a good marriage, for us to get to know each other. I wrote poetry for seven years to learn how to write a sentence because I really wanted to write novels and I figured that I couldn't write a novel until I could write a sentence. I used poetry as a lover but I never made her my old lady. . . . I tried to write poetry that would get at some of the hard things in my life that needed talking about but those things you can only tell your old lady.

— Richard Brautigan. "Old Lady." The San Francisco Poets. Ed. David Meltzer. New York: Ballantine Books, 1971. 293-294.

Collected Poetry

Use the links below to access information and resources for each of Brautigan's ten collections of poetry.

Individual poems may be easily accessed by using the "Poetry Title Index."

Uncollected Poetry

Brautigan wrote and published several poems that were never collected in any volume.
Information and resources are provided here for each of Brautigan's known, published, and uncollected poems.

Uncollected poems are grouped here by the year of their first publication, beginning with the earliest.

1952

"The Light"
Into the sorrow of the night
Through the valley of dark despair
Across the black sea of iniquity
Where the wind is the cry of the
suffering
There came a glorious saving light
The light of eternal peace
Jesus Christ, the King of Kings.

First Published

Eugene High School News 19 December 1952: 5.
Published under the larger title "Poet's Nook" and the subheading "Creative Writers Express Christmas Spirit." Credit: "Richard Brautigan"

Included several poems by faculty and students, as well as Brautigan.

Background

Eugene High School News was the newspaper of Brautigan's high school in Eugene, Oregon. LEARN more >>>

This poem was possibly Brautigan's first publication and his first as "Richard Brautigan." Until his final year of high school Brautigan was known as "Porterfield," the surname of his mother's second husband, Robert Geoffrey "Tex" Porterfield. Just before his graduation, he changed his surname from "Porterfield" to "Brautigan" and used that name for the rest of his life. Allegedly, Brautigan met his biological father, Bernard Brautigan, only twice. Bernard contended, upon learning of Brautigan's death, that he never knew he had a son. LEARN more >>>

1953

"A Cigarette Butt"
A cigarette butt is not a pretty
     thing.
It is not like the towering trees,
     the green meadows, or the for-
     est flowers.
It is not like a gentle fawn, a
     singing bird, or a hopping
     rabbit.
But these are all gone now,
And in the forest's place is a
Blackened world of charred trees
     and rotting flesh—
The remnants of another forrest
     fire
A cigarette but is not a pretty
     thing.

First Published

The Register-Guard [Eugene, Oregon]. August 24, 1953: 8A.
Credit: "Richard Brautigan"

"Moonlight on a Cemetery"
Moonlight drifts from over
A hundred thousand miles
To fall upon a cemetary.

It reads a hundred epitaphs
And then smiles at a nest of
Baby owls.

First Published

The Northwest's Own Magazine. October 11, 1953: 10.
Magazine of The Sunday Oregonian. Published in Portland, Oregon. Credit: "Richard Brautigan, Eugene, Or."

Background

Part of a full-page feature of Oregon poets with the heading "State Recognizes Oregon Poets: Governor and mayor proclaim observance; work of local writers presented." The brief text, by Ethel Romig Fuller, Poetry Editor, The Oregonian read:

BY PROCLAMATIONS [sic] of Governor Paul Patterson and Portland's Mayor Fred Peterson, Oregon Poetry Day will be observed October 15. This Sunday, as a part of an ambitious program of prescheduled events, Oregonian Verse presents local poets in a featured full-page spread.

The editor regrets a number of fine poems submitted must be held over for a near-future column.

The idea of Poetry Day originated with Lucia Trent, a Texas poet, as a memorial to her poet husband Ralph Cheney. By a 1952 count, 38 states had joined in the movement to honor their poets. This is Oregon's fourth such observance.

"Winter Sunset"
A slash of scarlet
On the black hair
Of a wounded bear.

First Published

The Northwest's Own Magazine. November 29, 1953: 11.
Magazine of The Sunday Oregonian. Published in Portland, Oregon. Credit: "Richard Brautigan, Eugene, Or."

Background

Part of "Oregonian Verse: First Publication Poetry" edited by Ethel Romig Fuller, Poetry Editor, The Oregonian.

"The Ochoco"
Beyond the distant blue horizon,
Far beyond the tow' ring cascades,
Lies a land of beguiling enchantment.
As serene as a summer night on the McKenzie,
As wild as a winter storm on the Pacific;
That is the land called the Ochoco,
Where the tall pine trees caress the sky.
A land of flowing streams and meadows green,
An Eldorado where cattle and trees spell prosperity.
The vastness makes a man as minute as a grain of sand.
Who can deny this land above the plateaus?
My heart is there now, thrilling to the beauty of the Ochoco.

First Published

Young America Sings: 1953 Anthology of Northwest States High School Poetry. Los Angeles, CA: National High School Poetry Association. 1953: 120.
Orange paper wrappers; plastic ring binding; front cover printed in black ink.

Background

Poem is part of the "Spring Semester Selections" and appears in the "Places" section. Credit: "Richard Brautigan—Eugene, H[igh]. S[chool]." Brautigan was in his final high school year at the time of publication.

The Ochoco National Forest is located in north central Oregon, east of the Cascade Mountains. It was created in 1911 from parts of the Deschutes National Forest and is noted for its lakes, rivers, dense evergreen forests, and the magnificent rock formations of the Ochoco Mountains.

1954

"The Ageless Ones"
Dewdust
Covering flower shadows

The dawn
And its prolific promises

The sea
Dancing to the music
Of the moon.

First Published

The Northwest's Own Magazine. February 7, 1954: 21.
Magazine of The Sunday Oregonian. Published in Portland, Oregon. Credit: "Richard Brautigan, Eugene, Or."

Background

Part of "Oregonian Verse: First Publication Poetry" edited by Ethel Romig Fuller, Poetry Editor, The Oregonian.

1955

"So Many Twilights"
An old woman sits
In a rocking chair
On the front porch
Of an old house.
The old woman watches
The stars turn on their
Lanterns in the clear,
Twilight sky above
The dark shadows
Of the fir trees
On the hill.
The old woman remembers
So many twilights.

First Published

Northwest Roto Magazine. May 29, 1955: 9.
Magazine of The Sunday Oregonian. Published in Portland, Oregon. Credit: "Richard Brautigan, Eugene, Or."

Background

Part of "Oregonian Verse: First Publication Poetry" edited by Ethel Romig Fuller, Poetry Editor, The Oregonian.

"First Star on the Twilight River"
A river of twilight
Flowed over the hills
And covered the valley
With its soft, cool water.
I sat beside my little brother
On the front porch, and I
Told him a story about
A flower that fell
In love with a star.
When I finished the story,
My little brother pointed
At the first star
On the twilight river,
And he said,
"Is dat da star?"

First Published

Northwest Roto Magazine. August 14, 1955: 23.
Magazine of The Sunday Oregonian. Published in Portland, Oregon. Credit" "R. Brautigan, Eugene, Or."

Background

Part of "Oregonian Verse: First Publication Poetry" edited by Ethel Romig Fuller, Poetry Editor, The Oregonian.

"Butterfly's Breath"
The moon throws
A shadow upon the night.
The shadow is as silent
As the birth of a rose,
And the shadow is as soft
As a butterfly's breath.

First Published

Northwest Roto Magazine. October 2, 1955: 14.
Magazine of The Sunday Oregonian. Published in Portland, Oregon. Credit: "Richard Brautigan, Eugene, Or."

Background

Part of "Oregonian Verse: First Publication Poetry" edited by Ethel Romig Fuller, Poetry Editor, The Oregonian.

"Someplace in the World a Man is Screaming in Pain"
Someplace in the world
a woman is sitting
under a beautiful green tree,
and she is shelling peas,
and she is thinking only
of beautiful things,
like waterfalls or rainbows
or peas.

First Published

Flame 2(3) Autumn 1955: inside back cover.
Published quarterly in Alpine, Texas, 1954-1963
16 pages, green wrappers, stapled binding
Edited by Lilith Lorraine
Printed in London, England

Background

Poems by Lorraine and Brautigan appeared together in the first issue of Danse Macabre in 1957. Brautigan's poem was "15 Stories in One Poem."

1956

"Storm over Fallon"
Thunder roared
across the sky
like the voice
of an angry man.

Rain started falling,
slowly at first,
then faster and faster,
and louder and louder.

The man became silent.

The voices of the rain
chattered like
little children
at a birthday party.

First Published

"Gab & Gossip." Fallon Standard July 25, 1956: 6.
Published weekly (every Wednesday) in Fallon, Nevada.

Background

Appeared with the poem "The Breeze" in a column titled "Gab & Gossip" written by Claude H. Smith, President of The Fallon Standard. As an introduction, Smith wrote:

When it comes to poetry or other types of literature, we leave to others the appraisal of what's good. Of poetry we are quite shy.

This page, however, carries two short pieces of blank verse by a newcomer to Fallon, Richard Brautigan. They are local. We like them both. Do you?

Barney Mergen writes of Brautigan's visit to Reno and Fallon, Nevada, is his memoir "A Strange Boy." LEARN more >>>

"The Breeze"
In the time
of the evening
all things
grow cool again
in Fallon
when God
starts caressing
this city
with
His great hands.

First Published

"Gab & Gossip." Fallon Standard July 25, 1956: 6.
Published weekly (every Wednesday) in Fallon, Nevada.

Background

Appeared with the poem "Storm over Fallon" in a column titled "Gab & Gossip" written by Claude H. Smith, President of The Fallon Standard. As an introduction, Smith wrote:

When it comes to poetry or other types of literature, we leave to others the appraisal of what's good. Of poetry we are quite shy.

This page, however, carries two short pieces of blank verse by a newcomer to Fallon, Richard Brautigan. They are local. We like them both. Do you?

Barney Mergen writes of Brautigan's visit to Reno and Fallon, Nevada, is his memoir "A Strange Boy." LEARN more >>>

"The Second Kingdom"
In the first kingdom
of the stars,
everything is always
half-beautiful.

Your fingernails
are angels
sleeping after
a long night
of making love.

The sound of
your eyes: snow
coming down
the stairs
of the wind.

Your hair
is the color
of God picking
flowers.

In the second
kingdom of the stars
there is only

you

First Published

Epos 8(2) Winter 1956: 23.
A post-Beat avant-garde poetry magazine published by New Athenaeum Press, Lake Como, Florida. Edited by Evelyn Thorne and Will Tullos. Provided this biographical information concerning Brautigan

Richard Brautigan, 21, "I have been writing poetry since I was 17. Olivant will publish my first book of poems, Tiger in the Telephone Booth. Making paper flowers out of love and death is a disease, but how beautiful it is."

Background

A love poem inspired by Linda Webster. The journal Olivant was edited by D. Vincent Smith and maintained publication offices in Fitzgerald, Georgia, and editorial offices in Japan where Smith was posted on active military duty. The first issue was published in 1956. Smith wrote Brautigan in late 1955-early 1956 saying he intended to republish the poem "Someplace in the World a Man is Screaming in Pain," published in the Fall 1955 issue of Flame, in the first issue of Olivant, his own literary magazine. He also asked to see a selection of further writing for possible publication in a supplement to Olivant. In July 1956, Smith wrote Brautigan again, saying he intended to publish all the poems Brautigan had sent him in a collection to be titled Tiger in the Telephone Booth. The book was never published and The Return of the Rivers, published in May 1957, became, technically, Brautigan's first book of poetry. The poems intended for Tiger in the Telephone Booth were "lost."

Selected Reprintings

Epos Anthology 1958.
Also included works by Clark Ashton Smith ("Ecclesiastes"), A. A. Ammons, and others.

"A Correction"
Cats walk on little cat feet
and fogs walk on little fog feet,
Carl.

First Published

The Caxton Poetry Review, Vol. 1, No. 2 Winter 1956: ***.
Published in Ohio.

Selected Reprintings

Wright, Lawrence. "The Life and Death of Richard Brautigan." Rolling Stone (445) 11 April 1985: 29, 31, 34, 36, 38, 40, 59, 61.

Background

This poem was written circa winter 1956-1957 and first published in Wright's article. Wright says Brautigan, wanting to meet poet Ron Loewinsohn, handed him this poem, which responds to Carl Sandburg's famous poem "Fog" (Wright 34). Loewinshon said Brautigan handed him

a little notebook. On one page was a poem in this incredible handwriting, a six-year-old's handwriting, which was called "A Correction" . . .. I chuckled, handed the notebook back to him, and he just walked away. (Peter Manso and Michael McClure 65)

1957

"A Young Poet"
No forms have I to bring except
handkerchiefs wet with neon tears,
and pumpkin pictures of the country
where a man is closer
to the dirt of his seed.

No forms have I to bring except
spidery old people
living in webby houses
and waiting to die.

No forms have I to bring except
the wild birds of heaven
in all their glory.

No forms have I to bring except
misanthropic merry-go-rounds,
and haunted toilets
and cups that breathe the eyes
of contented lovers.

No forms have I to bring except
the colors of the soul
painted on the world.

First Published

Epos 8(4) Summer 1957: 6.
A post-Beat avant-garde poetry magazine published by New Athenaeum Press, Lake Como, Florida. Edited by Will Tullos and Evelyn Thorne.

"The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth's Beer Bottles"
When we were children after the war
we lived for a year in a house next
to a large highway. There were many
sawmills and log ponds on the otherside
of the highway. The sound of the saws could
be heard most of the time and when there
was darkness trash burners glowed red
against the sky. We did not have a father
and our mother had to work very hard.
My sister and I got our spending money
by gathering beer bottles that had been
thrown along the highway or left around
the sawmills. At first we carried the
bottles in gunny sacks and cardboard boxes
but later we found an old baby buggy
and we used that to carry our bottles in.
We took the bottles to a grocery store
and were paid a penny for small beer bottles
and two cents for large ones. On almost
any day we could be seen pushing our baby
buggy along the highway looking
for beer bottles.

Textual References

Psalm 37:11. Brautigan tells a slightly different version of this anecdote in So the Wind Won't Blow It All Away, pages 8-13.

First Published

Four New Poets. Ed. Leslie Woolf Hedley. San Francisco: Inferno Press, 1957. 3-9.
34 pages; printed and stapled wrappers; Published Fall 1957.

Signed copies

View larger

Brautigan apparently signed this copy Tuesday, 24 August 1971, well after the book was first published.

This was Brautigan's first book appearance prior to his own solely authored book, The Return of the Rivers.

Four New Poets was an anthology featuring poetry by four poets the editor described as "representing an articulate segment of a sometime-called 'silent generation'."

Of Brautigan the introduction said,

Richard Brautigan is a young poet who was born January 30, 1935 in Tacoma, Washington. He now lives in San Francisco where he is working on a book of poems, The Horse That Had A Flat Tire.

Four poems by Brautigan were included: "The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth's Beer Bottles," "The Mortuary Bush," "Twelve Roman Soldiers and an Oatmeal Cookie," and "Gifts". This was Brautigan's first book appearance prior to his own solely authored book, The Return of the Rivers.

Background

Inferno Press issued 6.5" x 3.5" announcements for the book, printed in blue and gold ink on one side of heavy white paper and illustrated with a gold handprint. The promotional blurb read:

This collection from the work of four young poets, all under 25, presents an interesting contrast that is most refreshing after so much orthodoxy in current American poetry.

The other three poets were: Martin Hoberman, Carl Larsen, and James M. Singer. At the time of publication, none of the poets was over the age of 25. Larsen edited Existaria, a Journal of Existant Hysteria, in which, in 1957, Brautigan published two poems: "The Daring Little Guy on the Burma Shave Sign" and "The World Will Never End."

Of Brautigan the introduction said,

Richard Brautigan is a young poet who was born January 30, 1935 in Tacoma, Washington. He now lives in San Francisco where he is working on a book of poems, The Horse That Had A Flat Tire.

Leslie Woolf Hedley also edited a small poetry journal called Inferno. A total of eleven issues were published between 1950 and 1956. "Although Inferno did print a few significant Bay Area poets, the editorial bent seemed to be primarily international anonymity" (Eloyde Tovey 31).

"The Mortuary Bush"
Mr. William Lewis is an undertaker
and he hasn’t been feeling very good
lately because not enough people are
dying.

Mr. Lewis is buying a new house
and a new car and many appliances
on the installment plan and he needs
all the money he can get.

Mr. Lewis has headaches and can't
sleep at night and his wife says,
"Bill, what’s wrong?" and he says,
"Oh, nothing, honey," but at night
he can't sleep.

He lies awake in bed and wishes
that more people would die.

First Published

Four New Poets. Ed. Leslie Woolf Hedley. San Francisco: Inferno Press, 1957. 3-9.
34 pages; printed and stapled wrappers; Published Fall 1957.

Signed copies

View larger

Richard Brautigan is a young poet who was born January 30, 1935 in Tacoma, Washington. He now lives in San Francisco where he is working on a book of poems, The Horse That Had A Flat Tire.

Background

Inferno Press issued 6.5" x 3.5" announcements for the book, printed in blue and gold ink on one side of heavy white paper and illustrated with a gold handprint. The promotional blurb read:

This collection from the work of four young poets, all under 25, presents an interesting contrast that is most refreshing after so much orthodoxy in current American poetry.

Richard Brautigan is a young poet who was born January 30, 1935 in Tacoma, Washington. He now lives in San Francisco where he is working on a book of poems, The Horse That Had A Flat Tire.

Selected Reprintings

Hearse: A Vehicle Used to Convey the Dead (3 1958: n. pg.)
Included two poems by Brautigan: "The Mortuary Bush" and "Twelve Roman Soldiers and an Oatmeal Cookie." Editorial notes read:

Hearse regards Richard Brautigan, whose works appear opposite, as one of the most exciting younger poets. These two poems are from the Leslie Woolf Hedley collection, FOUR NEW POETS (Inferno Press) . . . we urge you to purchase it.

Published at 3118 K. Street, Eureka, California. Seventeen issues, 1957-1972. Edited by E. V. Griffith who described his journal as ". . . an irreverant quarterly, carrying poetry, prose artwork and incidental cadaver to the Great Cemetery of the American Intellect. . . ." Included work by Kenneth Rexroth, Langston Hughes, Alden A. Nowlan, Clarence Major, and Brautigan.

"Twelve Roman Soldiers and an Oatmeal Cookie"
While they talked
the seven-year-old girl listened quietly
and her eyes were like mice hiding
in the hay. The twelve Roman soldiers
stared at her naked body. Each one of them
had a long silver spear and it shone brightly
in the moonlight. The Roman soldiers stood
in a circle around the girl with their spears
pointed towards her. Then one of them stabbed
his silver spear in the ground and he came
slowly to the girl and he touched her with all
his body. Then the other soldiers came and
the girl did not cry. Afterwards as she walked
home she could hear a nightingale singing but
she did not know where. It seemed all around her.
When she got home her mother kissed her on the
cheek and gave her an oatmeal cookie from a
blue jar and while the girl ate the cookie
her mother told how strange and beautiful
the world was.

First Published

Four New Poets. Ed. Leslie Woolf Hedley. San Francisco: Inferno Press, 1957. 3-9.
34 pages; printed and stapled wrappers; Published Fall 1957.

Signed copies

View larger

Richard Brautigan is a young poet who was born January 30, 1935 in Tacoma, Washington. He now lives in San Francisco where he is working on a book of poems, The Horse That Had A Flat Tire.

Background

Inferno Press issued 6.5" x 3.5" announcements for the book, printed in blue and gold ink on one side of heavy white paper and illustrated with a gold handprint. The promotional blurb read:

This collection from the work of four young poets, all under 25, presents an interesting contrast that is most refreshing after so much orthodoxy in current American poetry.

Richard Brautigan is a young poet who was born January 30, 1935 in Tacoma, Washington. He now lives in San Francisco where he is working on a book of poems, The Horse That Had A Flat Tire.

Selected Reprintings

Hearse: A Vehicle Used to Convey the Dead (3 1958: n. pg.)
Included two poems by Brautigan: "The Mortuary Bush" and "Twelve Roman Soldiers and an Oatmeal Cookie." Editorial notes read:

Hearse regards Richard Brautigan, whose works appear opposite, as one of the most exciting younger poets. These two poems are from the Leslie Woolf Hedley collection, FOUR NEW POETS (Inferno Press) . . . we urge you to purchase it.

"Gifts"
At dawn when the dew has built its tents
on the grass, will you come to my grave
and sprinkle bread crumbs
from an enchanted kitchen?

Will you remember me down there
with my eyes shattered
and my ears broken
and my tongue turned to shadows?

Will you remember that I went to the graves
of many people and always knew I was buried
there?

And afterwards as I walked home to where
it was warm, I did not kid myself about
a God-damn thing.

Will you remember that one day
I went to your grave and you had been dead
for many years, and no one thought
about you any more,
except me?

Will you remember that we are fragile gifts
from a star, and we break?

Will you remember that we are pain
waiting to scream, holes
waiting to be dug, and
tears waiting to
fall?

* * *

And will you remember that after you have gone
from my grave, birds will come
and eat the bread?

First Published

Four New Poets. Ed. Leslie Woolf Hedley. San Francisco: Inferno Press, 1957. 3-9.
34 pages; printed and stapled wrappers; Published Fall 1957.

Signed copies

View larger

Richard Brautigan is a young poet who was born January 30, 1935 in Tacoma, Washington. He now lives in San Francisco where he is working on a book of poems, The Horse That Had A Flat Tire.

Background

Inferno Press issued 6.5" x 3.5" announcements for the book, printed in blue and gold ink on one side of heavy white paper and illustrated with a gold handprint. The promotional blurb read:

This collection from the work of four young poets, all under 25, presents an interesting contrast that is most refreshing after so much orthodoxy in current American poetry.

Richard Brautigan is a young poet who was born January 30, 1935 in Tacoma, Washington. He now lives in San Francisco where he is working on a book of poems, The Horse That Had A Flat Tire.

"The Final Ride"
The act of dying
is like hitch-hiking
into a strange town
late at night
where it is cold
and raining,
and you are alone
again.

Suddenly
all the street lamps
go out
and everything
becomes dark,
so dark
that even the buildings
are afraid
of one another.

First Published

Mainstream 2(2) Summer-Autumn 1957: 14.
5" x 9"; 63 pages
Bound in titled, over-laid wraps
This issue labeled the "San Francisco Issue"

Subtitled "A Quarterly Journal of Poetry, The Arts and Contemporary Comment"
Published at 17 South Cedar Street, Palatine, Illinois.
Edited by Robin Raey Cuscaden and Ronald Offen.
Published by Jack R. Lander.
Ceased publication with Volume 2, Number 3 in Winter 1958.

"The Daring Little Guy on the Burma Shave Sign"
Manny is one
of those little guys
in America
who would rush in
where angels fear
to tread and start
a hot dog stand.

If the business
fell through and Manny
ended up in hell,
he would accuse
the devil of being
antilabor.

Textual References

"rush in where angels fear to tread": From Alexander Pope's poem "An Essay on Criticism" (1711).

First Published

Existaria, a Journal of Existant Hysteria (7) September-October 1957: 14.
Published at 328 Palm Drive, Hermosa Beach, California. Printed by Ottumwa Duplicating Service, Ottumwa, Iowa. Edited by Carl Larsen. Ceased publication with Volume #7, September/October 1957.

Background

Featured two poems by Brautigan: "The Daring Little Guy on the Burma Shave Sign" and "The World Will Never End." The second stanza of "The World Will Never End" appeared in 1959 as "The Sink."

Also included work by O. W. Crane, Jed Garrick, Charles Bukowski, Rozana Webb, Joseph Martinek, Cerise Farallon, Fred Cogswell, E. W. Northnagel, Claudia Archuletta, Clarence Major, Apollinaire, John Charles Chadwick, Rockwell B. Schaefer, and Judson Crews. The editor, Carl Larsen, was one of the poets included, along with Brautigan, in the book Four New Poets. LEARN more >>>

"The World Will Never End"
Death has many little children and a drunk blindman pukes on the
sidewalk and then slips in the puke
and falls down and no one will help
him because he is dirty

Mr. Clay lives in a cheap hotel
room and he pees in the sink
Mr. Clay has no family or friends
If Mr. Clay dies tomorrow he’ll stop
peeing in the sink.

First Published

Background

"They Keep Coming Down the Dark Streets"
Gangs
of teen-agers
carrying chains
and switchblade
knives.

I saw
one of them
busted open,
blood running down his
temples.

—I'll kill him!
the boy screamed.
He was about fourteen.
—I'll kill him!

Another boy
carrying a chain
said—Don't worry.
We'll find him.
He'll get his.
Don't worry about
it.

—I'll kill him!

they keep coming down the dark streets

First Published

Danse Macabre 1(1) 1957: 18-19.
Began publication in 1957; published quarterly at 653 12th Street, Manhattan Beach, California. Printed by Ottumwa Duplicating Service, Ottumwa, Iowa. Edited and published by R. T. Baylor.

Featured two poems by Brautigan: "They Keep Coming Down the Dark Streets" and "15 Stories in One Poem."

Background

This issue also featured work by Orma McCormick, Richard Dwyer, Lilith Lorraine, Judson Crews, James Boyer May, and Carl Larsen.

Larsen edited the journal Existaria, a Journal of Existant Hysteria in which Brautigan published two poems: "The Daring Little Guy on the Burma Shave Sign" and "The World Will Never End" in 1957. Larsen was also one of the poets included, along with Brautigan, in the book Four New Poets. LEARN more >>>

Lilith Lorraine edited the journal Flame in which Brautigan published the poem "Someplace in the World a Man is Screaming in Pain" in 1955.

"15 Stories in One Poem"
I hate to bother you,
but I just dropped
a baby out the window

and it fell 15 stories
and splattered against
the sidewalk.

May I borrow a mop?

First Published

Background

Selected Reprintings

Hearse: A Vehicle Used to Convey the Dead 2 1958: inside back cover.
Published at 3118 K. Street, Eureka, California. Seventeen issues, 1957-1972. Edited by E. V. Griffith who described his journal as ". . . an irreverant quarterly, carrying poetry, prose artwork and incidental cadaver to the Great Cemetery of the American Intellect. . ." Brautigan's poem appeared under the heading "Coroner's Report," a series of annoucements by Griffith, and seemed to drive Griffith's introduction of Danse Macabre. He noted

the above poem, published in the pilot issue of DANSE MACABRE, reappears here as an introduction to a spirited new magazine which merits wide readership. . . .

1958

"Kingdom Come"
The world
has a magic direction
     in the twilight.
It is a place of spells
and visions.
Look out of the window.
Do you see the old woman
with the plum tree
on her back?
     She is walking
     up Hyde Street.
She appears to be lost
and I think she is crying.
     A taxi
     comes along.
She stops the taxi
and gets in
with the plum tree.
     She is
     gone now
and the evening star
shines in the sky.

First Published

Epos 9(3) Spring 1958: 20-21.
A post-Beat avant-garde poetry magazine published by New Athenaeum Press, Lake Como, Florida. Edited by Will Tullos and Evelyn Thorne.

1959

"Psalm"
A farmer
in Eastern
Oregon saw
Jesus in
a chicken
house.
Jesus was
standing
there,
holding
a basket
of eggs.
Jesus said,
"I'm
hungry."
The farmer
never
told what
he saw
to anyone.

First Published

San Francisco Review (2) Spring 1959: 63.
6" x 9"; 88 pages; paperback with printed wrappers
Published in San Francisco, California, Winter 1958 (Volume #1) through September 1962 (Volume #13).
Also included work by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Gary Snyder, William Saroyan, James Broughton, and others.

"The Whorehouse at the Top of Mount Rainier"
Baudelaire
climbed to the top
of Mount Rainier,
thinking all the time
that he was going
to a whorehouse
where there would be
Eskimo women.
When Baudelaire
reached the top
of Mount Rainier
and realized where
he was
and the mistake
that he had made,
Baudelaire shit
his pants.

First Published

Beatitude (1) 9 May 1959: n. pg.
8.5" x 11" mimeographed sheets with illustrated front cover of construction paper; No back cover.
A San Francisco beatnik magazine founded by poets Bob Kaufman, John Kelly, and William J. Margolis. Issues 1-7 published weekly at 14 Bannam Alley. Issues 8 until cessation of publication at the end of the year were published monthly at the Bread and Wine Mission, 510 Greenwich Street, San Francisco, California.

Also featured work by William J. Margolis, Allen Ginsberg, Bob Kaufman, Monty Pike, B. Uronovitz, Robert Stock, Dave DeSilver, Bob Hartman, Mark Green, Carol Mann, John Richardson, Pierre Henri Delattre, Lew Gardner, and Joe Gould.

Selected Reprintings

Beatitude Anthology. San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1960. 34-36.
Included five poems by Brautigan: "The American Submarine," "A Postcard from the Bridge," "That Girl," "The Whorehouse at the Top of Mount Rainer," and "Swandragons."

"The American Submarine"
". . . I became aware of a loud and gradually increasing sound, like the moaning of a vast herd of buffaloes upon an American prairie . . ."
—Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe
was an American submarine,

sailing beneath a herd of buffaloes,
he torpedoed a maelstrom,

it sank slowly
into a drop of our past,

and the buffaloes did not hear a sound,
they continued grazing peacefully

in Nebraska.

Textual References

"Edgar Allen Poe": American poet and short-story writer Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)
"I became aware . . .": from "A Descent into the Maelstrom" by Poe.

First Published

Beatitude (4) 30 May 1959.
8.5" x 11" mimeographed sheets with illustrated front cover.
A San Francisco beatnik magazine founded by poets Bob Kaufman, John Kelly, and William J. Margolis. Issues 1-7 published weekly at 14 Bannam Alley. Issues 8 until cessation of publication at the end of the year were published monthly at the Bread and Wine Mission, 510 Greenwich Street, San Francisco, California.

Featured four poems by Brautigan: "The American Submarine," "A Postcard from the Bridge," "That Girl," and "The Sink." The poem "The Sink" is the second stanza of "The World Will Never End" first published in 1957 (see above).

Also featured work by Bob Kaufman, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Philip Whalen, Ruth Weiss, Richard McBride, Stan Persky, and William Margolis.

Selected Reprintings

"A Postcard from the Bridge"
The autumn river
is cold and clear
and fish hang
in the deep water,
loving neither dreams
nor reality.

The fish hang
in the deep water
and turn slowly
like the pages
in an old book
of photographs.

First Published

Selected Reprintings

"That Girl"
A girl
with French teeth
and dandelions
in her hair
stops
a black sportscar
beside me
on the street
and says,
Get in.
Where are
we going?
I ask.
To my place,
she answers.
We drive
through the tunnel
and go
all the way out
to 1,000,000th
Broadway.

Her apartment
is nice.
There are
original Klees
and Picassos
hanging
on the walls.
She has
a thousand books
and a Hi-Fi set.
I would
make love
to you,
she says,
but I have
cement
in my vagina.
We drink
coffee
from little cups
and she reads
Apollinaire
to me
in French.
She is
very beautiful
but the dandelions
are starting
to wilt
in her hair.

Textual References

"original Klees and Picassos": Paul Klee (1879-1940), Swiss painter, and Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Spanish painter.
"Apollinaire": Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918), French poet, an early surrealist.

First Published

Selected Reprintings

"The Sink"
Mr. Clay lives in a cheap hotel
room and he pees in the sink
Mr. Clay has no family or friends
If Mr. Clay dies tomorrow he’ll stop
peeing in the sink.

First Published

"Swandragons"
Sometimes a man is the enemy
of his own dreams.
He is the knight the queen hates.
The queen is beautiful
and the knight is beautiful.
But the queen is married to an old king
and the young knight is religious.
He will not walk with the queen
through the royal gardens.
He will not smile at the queen.
He will not go up to her tower.
The queen hates him and she plots his death
even now as he lies asleep dreaming
of swandragons,
dreaming of God in the
sword.

First Published

View larger

Beatitude (9) 18 September 1959.
8.5" x 11" mimeographed sheets with illustrated front cover.
A San Francisco beatnik magazine founded by poets Bob Kaufman, John Kelly, and William J. Margolis. Issues 1-7 published weekly at 14 Bannam Alley. Issues 8 until cessation of publication at the end of the year were published monthly at the Bread and Wine Mission, 510 Greenwich Street, San Francisco, California.

Also featured work by Allen Ginsberg, Philip Whalen, David Meltzer, Bob Kaufman, William Margolis, Ron Padgett, Barbara Moraff, Richard McBride, Peter Orlovsky, and Philip Lamantia.

Selected Reprintings

1961

"The Rain"
I was born in the junkyard.
A dead man came out of a tin shack
     covered with dark roses
     and said, It’s going to rain.
Would you like to buy an old car
that looks just like an umbrella?
I gave the man fifty dollars.
He put some gas in the car
     and I drove away.
When I looked back,
the junkyard was gone
and in its place
was a famous castle.
A beautiful woman
was standing
at the top
of the waterfall.
She had long hair
like fish.
     I think she was the queen
     and I was the king.
          Good-bye.
          Good-bye.

First Published

Hearse: A Vehicle Used to Convey the Dead 9 1961: 4.
Published at 3118 K. Street, Eureka, California. Seventeen issues, 1957-1972. Edited by E. V. Griffith who described his journal as ". . . an irreverant quarterly, carrying poetry, prose artwork and incidental cadaver to the Great Cemetery of the American Intellect. . ."

1965

"October 2, 1960"
My six-month-old daughter
is lying on our
     hippopotamus bed, trying
to eat the telephone book.

She'll eat it by and by
and the last number will be
     MOntrse 1-2021,
the San Francisco Zoo-
     logical Society.

Textual References

"MOntrse 1-2021": A telephone number, formed by a contraction of "Montrose," perhaps a local, San Francisco, telephone exchange.

First Published

San Francisco Keeper's Voice 1(4) April 1965: 6.
8.5" x 11"; Eight-page publication with illustrations featuring news, entertainment, and other information of interest to the animal keepers at the San Francisco Zoo and other interested readers. Published by Alexander Weiss, San Francisco, California. First volume appeared January 1965.

Brautigan's poem appeared on the "Permanent Page of Particular Poetry." Biographical note reads

Richard Brautigan is a San Francisco poet and writer whose novel, A Confederate General from Big Sur, has recently been published by Grove Press.

"Lullaby for a Lost Leek"
Which week?
Lost week.

Background

Holography. Unsigned. A hand-written poem, given to Philip Whalen, in San Francisco, California, 1965. The poem remained among Whalen's papers and was cataloged by Whalen as one of several "Miscellaneous Manuscripts."

Philip Whalen (1923-2002) was born in Portland, Oregon, and grew up in The Dalles, Oregon. He served in the United States Air Force during World War II and then attended Reed College, in Portland, with Gary Snyder and Lew Welch, graduating in 1951. He moved to San Francisco, California, where he participated in the San Francisco Poetry Renaissance and published regularly. He lived in Japan between 1958 and 1971 where he studied Zen Buddhism. He returned to California and became a Zen Buddhist monk in 1973. He wrote more than twenty books, including three novels.

"The Carrot Caution"
For Philip Whalen

If an elephant has a $23 nose
in the ladies dress department

with all the sales personnel
cracking up and wanting to be transferred

immediately to Iceland

then an ant must have a 1 cent nose
in the bargain basement.

Oh, he's a carrot caution,
a real potato watcher.

Richard Brautigan (signed)
July 27, 1965

Background

Typescript. Signed. Given to Philip Whalen, in San Francisco, California, 1965. The poem remained among Whalen's papers and was cataloged by Whalen as one of several "Miscellaneous Manuscripts."

Philip Whalen (1923-2002) was born in Portland, Oregon, and grew up in The Dalles, Oregon. He served in the United States Air Force during World War II and then attended Reed College, in Portland, with Gary Snyder and Lew Welch, graduating in 1951. He moved to San Francisco, California, where he participated in the San Francisco Poetry Renaissance and published regularly. He lived in Japan between 1958 and 1971 where he studied Zen Buddhism. He returned to California and became a Zen Buddhist monk in 1973. He wrote more than twenty books, including three novels.

"The Buses"
Philosophy should stop
at midnight like the buses.
Imagine Nietzsche, Jesus
and Bertrand Russell parked
in the silent car barns.

Textual References

"Nietzsche": Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), German philosopher.
"Bertrand Russell": English philosopher and mathematician (1872-1970).

First Published

Wild Dog (18) 17 July 1965: 19.
Published at 39 Downey Street, San Francisco, California
Edited by Joanne Kyger
Contributing Editor Edward Dorn

Featured two poems by Brautigan: "The Buses" and "Period Piece" and "At Sea," his review of Michael McClure's Ghost Tantras.
Also included work by Gino Clays, Harold Dull, Robert Duncan ("The Gift of Tongues or The Imagination"), Ken Irby, Ron Loewinsohn, Gilbert Sorrentino, Drew Wagnon, and Lewis Warsh.

A mimeograph magazine, Wild Dog published a total of twenty-one issues from 1963-1966. The magazine was started by Edward Dorn in April 1963 in Pocatello, Idaho. It then moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, and from there to San Francisco, California, where it ended with Volume 3, Number 21 in March 1966.

"Period Piece"
Nobody needs a dragon cutter any more,
and so my life has no earthly purpose.
I sit here on my ass in a leather chair
provided by a tiny pension from
the king’s shoeshine boy,
and I remember great green chunks of dragon
sliced and stacked in the ice wagons.

First Published

1966

"The Peacock Song"
I remember a beautiful Indian girl
sitting embarrassed on a bus in Mexico.

She had no shoes and her feet were naked
like two breasts lying on the dirty floor.

She tried to cover up one foot
by standing on it with the other foot.

Background

Written circa 1966, possibly while Brautigan was visiting Mexico, researching for his novel The Abortion. Typed and submitted to the Communication Company for publication as a broadside but apparently never used. Brautigan's address appeared in the upper right corner of the typescript.

Richard Brautigan
2546 Geary Street
San Francisco
California

"The House"
There are days when our cat
becomes the doors and windows
     of the house.

To go into the bedroom
I must open a wooden cat
that has an iron mouse
     in its claws,

and to look out the window
at the sky I must peer
through the stomach of a cat digesting
     —is it a bird?

First Published

O'er (2) December 1966: 107-109.
8.5" x 11" mimeographed sheets of different colored construction paper; 128 pages; staple binding
Published in San Francisco, California, by Cranium Press.
Edited by David Sandberg.
Called variously Awwr, O'er, and Oar at different points of this issue. First issue appeared April 1966 and was titled or #1.

Featured three poems by Brautigan: "The House," "My Nose is Growing Old," and "November 3." Each poem appeared on a separate page. "My Nose is Growing Old" and "November 3" were collected in All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace. "The House" was not included in any collection.

In addition to Brautigan's poems, this issue also featured a full-page advertisement for The Galilee Hitch-Hiker to be published by Oar, complete with made up blurbs promoting the book.

Also included work by Jack Spicer, Lew Welch, Anselm Hollo, John Sinclair, Clark Coolidge, and others.

1967

The Sitting Here, Standing Here Poem
Ah,
sitting here in the beautiful sunny morning!
   Santa Barbara, listening to
     Donovan singing songs
       about love, the wind and seagulls.

I'm 32 but feel just like a child
I guess I'm too old now to grow old
     Good!

I'm alone in the house because she's asleep
     in the bedroom.

She's a tall slender girl
     and uses up the whole bed!

My sperm is singing its way
through the sky of her body
     like a chorus of galaxies.

I go into the bedroom to look at her.
I'm looking down at her. She's asleep.
I'm standing here writing this.

Background

Written for Althea Susan Morgan in 1967. Morgan and Brautigan were friends from January-June 1967. They met in Isla Vista/Goleta, California, where Brautigan was participating in a poetry reading at the Unicorn Book Shop. Morgan lived in Santa Barbara, California, where Brautigan visited her and wrote this poem. Morgan recounts waking one morning to find the poem on her desk. Morgan copied the poem and later asked Brautigan for a signed copy. He declined in a letter to Morgan.

Feedback from Susan Morgan

He apparently destroyed that poem because when I asked for a copy of it the next year he couldn't find it. I had copied it off his notepad while he was in the shower without his knowing. It was written up in the mountains east of Santa Barbara while we were staying over the night with my friends the Maytags who owned the Unicorn Bookstore. Ken is a Maytag Washer heir and Melisssa is now a manager at Codys Books in Berkeley.

Althea Susan Morgan. Email to John F. Barber 4 December 2005.

Morgan and Brautigan exchanged letters about this poem and other topics.

Additionally, Brautigan wrote and dedicated the poem "Albion Breakfast" for Morgan, who recounts the poem's genesis.

Erik Weber photographed Brautigan and Morgan in Brautigan's Geary Street apartment in March 1967. LEARN more >>>

1970

"Your Love"
Your love
Somebody else needs it
I don't.

First Published

Link, Terry. "Loading Mercury With a Pitchfork." Rolling Stone (60) June 11, 1970: 26.
Brautigan read this poem at a poetry reading at the First Unitarian Church in San Francisco, 7 May 1970. Link reviewed the reading. LEARN more >>>

1971

"A Legend of Horses"
Of course
the prostitutes
of reality
are the virgins
in dreams
but there are
seven horses
in the meadow
with no one
to ride them
and all things
are happening
at once.
It is raining.
It is snowing.
The sun is shining.
The grass is black
and there are
seven horses
in the meadow
with no one
to ride them.
The old woman
comes along
selling apples.
The apples
are very beautiful
but the horses
are afraid
and they hide
in the ocean.
Fish look
at them
strangely.
—Spring 1958

First Published

Five Poems. Berkeley: Serendipity Books, 1971.
17" x 11" broadside for the International Antiquarian Book Fair.
Featured five poems by Brautigan: "A Legend of Horses," "Toward the Pleasures of a Reconstituted Crow," "A Moth in Tucson, Arizona," "Death Like a Needle," and "Heroine of the Time Machine."

All save "A Legend of Horses" collected in Loading Mercury with a Pitchfork.

1982

"Rendezvous"
Where you are now
I will join you.

First Published

Barber, John F. Richard Brautigan: An Annotated Bibliography. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1990. 4.
Written July 1982 and burned later the same night as part of a funeral rite associated with the death of Nikki Arai, character in An Unfortunate Woman.

1984

"Night Flowing River"
     Wearing a grey cowboy-style sort of formal Western jacket given to me by Peter Fonda's wife Becky in Montana, "You have to dress up sometimes," and on the right sleeve a borrowed black armband from Shiina Takako here in Tokyo, "This is perfectly all right." "But I don't want to offend anyone," I reply. "You won't offend anyone. This is all right." "But I'm a foreigner," I reply. "It's all right," and so then I go to my very first funeral ever. I've never been to a funeral in my land of America, and I start walking toward Aoyama Saijoh.

Maybe a kilometer away.
On a very hot afternoon.
To my first funeral.

. . . and then I'm
in the current of the
night flowing river
waiting to flow inside
Aoyama Saijoh
to say good-bye
to Terayama Shuji.

I've never been very good
at figuring out the volume
of large groups, but
there must have been
thousands of people there,
dressed in black, flowing
inside to place a white
chrysanthemum in front
of his memory.

There were so many of us
that we had to wait outside
in the hot sun before
we could go inside.

I've never been to a more
quieter place than the
silence of so many people
moving like a night flowing
     river.

It was so quiet that
I saw a black ant
crawl under a man’s shoe
in front of me.

The ant crawled under the
right shoe passing between
the heel and the sole.
The funeral-black shoe
was like a midnight bridge
over the ant. Then the
ant was inbetween the man's
     legs.

The river of mourners had
stopped moving for a moment.
All it would have to do
would be to start moving
right now and that black ant
would be at its own funeral.

Then the ant started crawling
toward the man's left shoe
with all intent to pass under
this shoe as it had done with
     the right shoe.

I looked up from the ant
to the head of the procession
motionless outside the funeral
     home.

The procession still wasn't
moving, but it was a long distance
between that man's legs
for an ant to crawl over to
and under the left shoe,
and the future itself is as
fragile and uncertain
as that ant’s journey.

The procession paused like
stationary black glass
just long enough for that
ant to make it under the
man's shoe and into the future,
and then the procession moved
effortlessly like a night flowing
river into Aoyama Saijoh.

Good-bye, Terayama Shuji.

Textual References

"Peter Fonda's wife Becky": American writer Tom McGuane's ex-wife, Rebecca Crockett, married American actor Peter Fonda (1939- ) in 1975.
"Aoyama Saijoh": A funeral hall in Tokyo.
"Terayama Shuji": A Japanese playwright and tanka poet, owner of the underground theater Tenjo Sajik, in Tokyo (1936-4 May 1983). Brautigan attended his funeral in Tokyo, Japan, and wrote this poem after the ceremony.

Brautigan talked about his experience at Terayama Shuji's funeral at the One World Poetry Festival, in Amsterdam, in February 1984.

Original typescript

These photographs show the orignal typescript of the poem "Night Flowing River" as written by Brautigan in Japan in 1984.

View larger

First Published

View larger

"Yoru ni nagareru kawa." Asahi Shinbun [Tokyo, Japan] Evening Edition 6 June 1983: 5.
Translated by Shuntaro Tanikawa.

First publication; first publication in Japanese

Republished

"Richard Brautigan: Tokyo and Montana." Friends of the Washington Review of the Arts 9(5) February/March 1984: 9.
Featured this poem, a story titled "The Lost tree," and a photograph of Brautigan by Toby Thompson.

["not forgotten"]

First Published

C/O. Bologna, Italy: C/O Scorribanda Productions, 1984. 21.
A publication led by Italian writer Franco Beltrametti with Gianni Castagnoli, Patrizia Vicinelli, and John Gian.

Online Resource

Franco Beltrametti Archive website

This issue of C/O featured contributions from American and European poets and artists. Among the American contributors were Ted Berrigan, Richard Brautigan, Gary Snyder, and Jack Spicer.

Brautigan's contribution was a collaboration with Dutch poet and painter Harry Hoogstraten and consisted of a series of lines drawn on the page, the most dominant of which was labeled "not forgotten" in Brautigan's handwriting. Brautigan visited Leiden University, Amsterdam, in February 1983 and spent time with Hoogstraten.

1989

"Somehow We Live and Die Again"
Somehow we live and die again,
I wonder why to me it just seems
     another beginning.
Everything leads to something else, so
     I think I'll start
          over again.
Maybe I'll learn something new
Maybe I won't
Maybe it will just be the same
     beginning again
Time goes fast
     for no reason
Because it all starts
     over again
I'm not going anyplace
except where I've
     been before.

First Published

Abbott, Keith. Downstream from Trout Fishing in America. Santa Barbara, CA: Capra Press, 1989. 137.

"Reflection"
God, all the shit
that is going to be written
about me
after I am dead.

First Published

Abbott, Keith. Downstream from Trout Fishing in America. Santa Barbara, CA: Capra Press, 1989. 138.

"Death Growth"
There was a darkness
upon the darkness,
and only the death
growth
was growing. It
grew like
the darkness upon darkness
growing.

First Published

Abbott, Keith. Downstream from Trout Fishing in America. Santa Barbara, CA: Capra Press, 1989. 138.

1997

"Poem for Michael McClure"
It's like playing Russian roulette
with a carnival.
You never know what act or ride
you're going to get in your ear.

March 14, 1967

First Published

The Poet's Eye: A Tribute to Lawrence Ferlinghetti and City Lights Books. Ed. Richard Ogar. Berkeley, CA: The Friends of the Bancroft Library, 1997. 61-63.

Background

This book came from the Symposium and 49th Annual Meeting of The Friends of Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, California, 12-13 April 1996. The theme was "Ferlinghetti, City Lights Books, and the Beats in San Francisco: From the Margins to the Mainstream."
Also featured a poem titled "Remembering City Lights" by Brautigan's daughter Ianthe.

Poet Michael McClure and Brautigan were good friends. LEARN more >>>

S. A. Griffith, a Los Angeles, California, poet, actor, and one of the founding members of Carma Bums, a group of touring poets, wrote about this event.

Online Resource

Griffith's description of the event at his website

"Rainy Gary Snyder Poetry Reading Night"
          For Albert and Jay

     Gee,
a great beautiful poetry tower!
with lights and pictures coming from it
     right in the middle
     of the Fillmore Auditorium,
and Gary Snyder sitting on the stage floor
reading Mountains and Rivers without End
and the lights and pictures flashing
     behind him on the wall.

He reads dramatically for almost two hours
the precise things of a man’s life:
thousands of experiences speeded
     up to no fucking around.

There is a candle burning beside him
and the Fillmore is filled with flowers
     and oranges.

It is raining very hard outside.
Sometimes the sound of the rain
bumps up against the distant edges
     of his voice.

After the reading friends stay
and majestically clean up the Fillmore.
There is the putting away of chairs
and sweeping of the floor.

Lew Welch goes out and gets a bottle
     of vodka
and pours it into our coffee,
so now we’re drinking
     Russian coffee.

I walk home alone up Geary Street in the rain.
Water pours down the pillar
     of a pedestrian overpass.
It looks like a small waterfall
     and pleases me.
I feel relaxed and see a flat
dead pigeon forming a peninsula
     in the rain-driven gutter.

The bird has been freshly run over
and its guts look like canned vegetables
     but it doesn't bother me.

I end up here in my house on Geary
lying in bed with incense burning
     on the dresser,
listening to the wet // slash of car tires
     on the street,
and thinking about the poetry tower
with lights and pictures
     coming from it.

          San Francisco
          March 16, 1967

Textual References

"Mountains and Rivers without End": From Six Sections from Mountains and Rivers without End, Part One (1965) by San Francisco poet Lew Welch.

First Published

The Poet's Eye: A Tribute to Lawrence Ferlinghetti and City Lights Books. Ed. Richard Ogar. Berkeley, CA: The Friends of the Bancroft Library, 1997. 61-63.

Background

Online Resource

Griffith's description of the event at his website

Unpublished Poetry

Unpublished poetry was found among Brautigan's papers after his death in 1984.
They are now administered by either Brautigan's estate or libraries that maintain collections of his papers.
Known unpublished poems in such collections include:

"All These Preludes to Dying"
"At the Tomb of Mayakotsky"
"Christmas, 1958"
"The Christopher Columbus of Forgetting"
"Circus"
"Daughter of the Farm"
"Dream"
"End"
"The Escape of the Owl"
"The Eternal Automobile"
"Eulogy"
"Firefly"
"The First Prize"
"The Fishermen" / "Fisherman's Lake" (for Michaela Blake-Grand)
"The Peacock Song" (submitted to the Communication Company)

"Forgotten"
"The Forest Fire Dream"
"The Fourth of July in December"
"Fragment"
"The Fur Coats"
"Genesis"
"Glass"
"Halloween"
"The Henry Thoreau Defect"
"Housewife Poem"
"Human Dignity"
"The Ice Man"
"Illumination"
"It's Kite Time"
"The Love Life of Adam Twelvetrees"

"A Lyric for Coffee Dulcimer"
"The Magic Wand"
"Mammal Fortress" (for Michaela Blake-Grand)
"The Memory of Gate Creek"
"Milena"
"The Morning Star"
"My Heart Laid Bare"
"Nightingale"
"Octopus"
"The Oil Wells"
"Olympia"
"Ornithology"
"Quatrain"
"Rockets"

"Sanctuary"
"The Spring Muse"
"Sonnet—'Because we live beside a Mexican airfield . . .'"
"Sonnet—'The sea is like . . .'"
"Sunday"
"Syntaxial Weather"
"Three Days of History"
"Three Greek Columns"
"The Tired Poet"
"To Eat High on the Hawk"
"Translation"
"The Twentieth of November Street"
"The Whale Dance from Finnegan's Wake"

"The Belle of the Blood Bank"
about his daughter, Ianthe, watching him donate blood at the Irwin Memorial Blood Bank of the San Francisco Medical Society

"Spikes"
about the teeth of his cat, Jake

"The Eskimo of My Cat"
about his cat, Jake

"The Daily Bread"
written 11 June 1963; describes the process of making barium swallows at Pacific Chemical, a part time job Brautigan held for years
"My job is to weigh
things out,
and so I do it: 400 grams
of cellulose gum,
and four grams of saccharine and
.8 gram of
naconol [. . .]"

"Seven Poems for Mike Nathan"
Nathan was a teenage painter in North Beach when he and Brautigan first met. Through Nathan, Brautigan met Kenn Davis. Both Brautigan and Nathan underwent electroshock treatments
"I changed color into glass, and I drank water from your painting . . ."

"A Place Where the Wind Doesn't Blow"
Written for Marcia Pacaud, 12 July 1967, while Brautigan stayed at her Sausalito apartment, 15 Princess Lane (apartment 5)

"The Planted Egg, the Harvested Bird"
Written for Marcia Pacaud, 12 July 1967, while Brautigan stayed at her Sausalito apartment, 15 Princess Lane (apartment 5)

"The Privacy of My Dreams Is Like Death"
Written late January 1968

"The First Lady of Purple"
Dedicated to Valerie Estes, October 1968, while Brautigan lived in her Kearny Street apartment.

"Valerie's Birthday Poem"
Written for Valerie Estes, 9 April 1969, her birthday

"Fake Protien [sic]", 13 April 1969, written while traveling to Durham, North Carolina, for a reading at Duke University

"Tongue Cemetary [sic]", 13 April 1969, written while traveling to Durham, North Carolina, for a reading at Duke University

"When the Star Stops Counting the Sky"
In all the space between nothing
Where a kingdom could have existed

   a thing bird
      flies around
         the moment
            of her wings
               In the beginning of oblivion.

Written July 1983 for Masako Kano

"Waiting Potatoes"
Potatoes await like edible shadows
under the ground. They wait in
their darkness for the light of
      the soup.

Written July 1983 for Masako Kano

"The Accidental, Unintentional Color of Your Death"
Nobody knows how
they will die.

Their color will find
      them.

Written July 1983 for Takako Shiina

"Spare Me"
I want day to become night,
and night to become day, so that I
will never love again.

Written July 1983 after ending his relationship with Masako Kano in Tokyo, Japan.

"Reflections"
God, all the shit
that is going to be written
about me
after I am dead

Written 10 January 1984 in the Keio Plaza Hotel, Tokyo, Japan

"Death Growth"
There was a darkness
upon the darkness,
and only the death
      growth
was growing. It
grew like
the darkness upon darkness
      growing.

Written 12 January 1984 in the Keio Plaza Hotel, Tokyo, Japan

"Death My Answering Service"
Written January 1984 in the Keio Plaza Hotel, Tokyo, Japan

"Hopeless Candles"
The light of hopeless candles
illuminate the vocabulary of dying roots
under freshly-burned trees.

Written January 1984 in the Keio Plaza Hotel, Tokyo, Japan

"The Full-Moon LA Olympics"
Written July 1984 after Brautigan watched the opening ceremonies of the Olympics in Los Angeles. Brautigan was touched by the ceremony as this poem is filled with patriotism and national pride.

Poetry Title Index

Richard Brautigan wrote and published many poems.
This index provides an alphabetical listing of each individual poem title.

Use the links below to access information and resources for each of Brautigan's poems.
Select the first letter of the first word of the poem title, excluding any articles (A, The, etc.).