the castle of the cormorants

Hamlet with

a cormorant

under his arm

married Ophelia.

She was still

wet from drowning.

She looked like

a white flower

that had been

left in the

rain too long.

I love you

said Ophelia,

and I love

that dark

bird you

hold in

your arms.

-richard brautigan

big sur

february 1958

Lonny

Lonny is

two years old.

Yesterday

she and I

whispered together.

I didn't know

what she was

whispering about,

and she didn't

know what I was

whispering about.

We whispered

very softly,

and acted as if

we understood

each other

perfectly.

--R. Brautigan

Everything smelled of sheep.

The dandelions were suddenly more sheep than flower, each petal reflecting wool and the sound of a bell ringing off the yellow. But the thing that smelled the most like sheep, was the very sun itself. When the sun went behind a cloud, the smell of the sheep decreased like standing on some old guy's hearing aid, and when the sun came back again, the smell of the sheep was loud, like a clap of thunder inside a cup of coffee.

—- Trout Fishing in America

1-4

graveyards

The bookstore was a parking lot for used graveyards. Thousands of graveyards were parked in rows like cars. Most of the books were out of print, and no one wanted to read them any more and the people who had read the books had died or forgotten about them, but through the organic process of music the books had become virgins again. They wore their ancient copyrights like new maidenheads.

bob and constance

"I'm crying because of all those Greeks," Bob said.
His face was so full of tears that there wasn't room for another tear. He tried to find enough room for one more tear but he couldn't find it, so he stopped crying.
"What Greeks?" Constance said and as the word's left her mouth, she knew what Greeks. It was those Greeks. She wished that she hadn't asked the question.
"The ones in the Greek Anthology," Bob said. "What about them?" Constance said and then realized that she'd said it. She felt as if she'd subconsciously set a trap for herself and then fallen into it.
"They're dead," Bob said.

Willard and His Bowling Trophies-Richard Brautigan

rb rb rb rb rb

Probably the closest things to perfection are the huge absolutely empty holes that astronomers have recently discovered in space. If there’s nothing there, how can anything go wrong?
— Richard Brautigan

richard richard richard

THE NECESSITY OF APPEARING
IN YOUR OWN FACE
There are days when that is the last place
in the world where you want to be but you
have to be there, like a movie, because it
features you.

telescopic saint

She was half asleep.

There was an expression of dreaming on her face. I hated to interrupt her. I know how much a dream can be worth.

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,
its 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.

Gifts

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

Please

Do you think of me
as often
as I think
of you?

high on the moonshine

A+

brautigan before bed

a broom

"I will be very careful the next time I fall in love, she told herself. Also, she had made a promise to herself that she intended on keeping. She was never going to go out with another writer: no matter how charming, sensitive, inventive or fun they could be. They weren't worth it in the long run. They were emotionally too expensive and the upkeep was complicated. They were like having a vacuum cleaner around the house that broke all the time and only Einstein could fix it.
She wanted her next lover to be a broom. "
-richard brautigan