Richard Brautigan: I Live In The Twentieth Century

I live in the Twentieth Century
and you lie here beside me. You
were unhappy when you fell asleep.
There was nothing I could do about
it. I felt hopeless. Your face
is so beautiful that I cannot stop
to describe it, and there's nothing
I can do to make you happy while
you sleep.

Richard Brautigan: I Feel Horrible. She Doesn't

I feel horrible. She doesn't
love me and I wander around
like a sewing machine
that's just finished sewing
a turd to a garbage can lid.

Richard Brautigan: 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.

Richard Brautigan: 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.

Richard Brautigan: Finding is Losing Something Else

Finding is losing something else.
I think about, perhaps even mourn,
       what I lost to find this.

Richard Brautigan: Deer Tracks

Beautiful, sobbing, high-geared fucking
and then to lie silently like deer tracks
in freshly fallen snow beside the one
you love. That’s all.

Richard Brautigan: 2

Everybody wants to go to bed
with everybody else, they're
lined up for blocks, so I'll
go to bed with you. They won't
miss us.

Richard Brautigan : Boo Forever

Spinning like a ghost
on the bottom of a
top,
I'm haunted by all
the space that I
will live without
you.

Richard Brautigan: Xerox Candy Bar

Ah,
you're just a copy
of all the candy bars
I've ever eaten.

Richard Brautigan: Just Because

Just because
people love your mind,
doesn't mean they
have to have
your body,
too.

Richard Brautigan: It's Raining In Love

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 rain?"
and she says, "I don't know,"
I start thinking : Does she really like me?

In other words
I get a little creepy.

A friend of mine once said,
"It's twenty times better to be friends
with someone
than it is to be in love with them."

I think he's right and besides,
it's raining somewhere, programming flowers
and keeping snails happy.
That's all taken care of.

BUT

if a girl likes me a lot
and starts getting real nervous
and suddenly begins asking me funny questions
and looks sad if I give the wrong answers
and she says things like,
"Do you think it's going to rain?"
and I say, "It beats me,"
and she says, "Oh,"
and looks a little sad
at the clear blue California sky,
I think : Thank God, it's you, baby, this time
instead of me.

Richard Brautigan: 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.

Richard Brautigan: Your Catfish Friend

If I were to live my life 

in catfish forms

in scaffolds of skin and whiskers 

at the bottom of a pond 

and you were to come by

    one evening

when the moon was shining 

down into my dark home 

and stand there at the edge

    of my affection

and think, "It's beautiful 

here by this pond.  I wish

    somebody loved me,"

I'd love you and be your catfish 

friend and drive such lonely 

thoughts from your mind

 and suddenly you would be

   at peace,

and ask yourself, "I wonder 

if there are any catfish 

in this pond?  It seems like 

a perfect place for them."