Death poems
/ page 472 of 560 /
Inferno Canto03
© Dante Alighieri
Per me si va ne la citt? dolente,
per me si va ne l'etterno dolore,
per me si va tra la perduta gente .
Inferno (English)
© Dante Alighieri
CANTO I
ONE night, when half my life behind me lay,
I wandered from the straight lost path afar.
Through the great dark was no releasing way;
Part 9 of Trout Fishing in America
© Richard Brautigan
SANDBOX MINUS JOHN DILLINGER EQUALS WHAT?Often I return to the cover of Trout Fishing in America. Itook the baby and went down there this morning. They werewatering the cover with big revolving sprinklers. I saw somebread lying on the grass. It had been put there to feed thepigeons. The old Italians are always doing things like that. Thebread had been turned to paste by the water and was squashedflat against the grass. Those dopey pigeons were waiting untilthe water and grass had chewed up the bread for them, sothey wouldn't have to do it themselves. I let the baby play in the sandbox and I sat down on a benchand looked around. There was a beatnik sitting at the otherend -of the bench. He had his sleeping bag beside him and hewas eating apple turnovers. He had a huge sack of apple turn-overs and he was gobbling them down like a turkey. It wasprobably a more valid protest than picketing missile bases. The baby played in the sandbox. She had on a red dressand the Catholic church was towering up behind her red dress.There was a brick john between her dress and the church. Itwas there by no accident. Ladies to the left and gents to theright. A red dress, I thought. Wasn't the woman who set JohnDillinger up for the FBI wearing a red dress? They calledher "The Woman in Red. " It seemed to me that was right. It was a red dress, but sofar, John Dillinger was nowhere in sight. my daughterplayed alone in the sandbox. Sandbox minus John Dillinger equals what? The beatnik went and got a drink of water from the fountainthat was crucified on the wall of the brick john, more towardthe gents than the ladies. He had to wash all those apple turn-overs down his throat. There were three sprinklers going in the park. There wasone in front of the Benjamin Franklin statue and one to theside of him and one just behind him. They were all turning incircles. I saw Benjamin Franklin standing there patientlythrough the water. The sprinkler to the side of Benjamin Franklin hit the left-hand tree. It sprayed hard against the trunk and knocked someleaves down from the tree, and then it hit the center tree,sprayed hard against the trunk and more leaves fell. Then itsprayed against Benjamin Franklin, the water shot out to thesides of the stone and a mist drifted down off the water. Ben-jamin Franklin got his feet wet. The sun was shining down hard on me. The sun was brightand hot. After a while the sun made me think of my own dis-comfort. The only shade fell on the beatnik. The shade came down off the Lillie Hitchcock Colt statueof some metal fireman saving a metal broad from a mentalfire. The beatnik now lay on the bench and the shade was twofeet longer than he was. A friend of mine has written a poem about that statue. God-damn, I wish he would write another poem about that statue,SO it would give me some shade two feet longer than my body. I was right about "The Woman in Red, " because ten min-utes later they blasted John Dillinger down in the sandbox.The sound of the machine-gun fire startled the pigeons andthey hurried on into the church. My daughter was seen leaving in a huge black car shortlyafter that. She couldn't talk yet, but that didn't make any dif-ference. The red dress did it all. John Dillinger's body lay half in and half out of the sand-box, more toward the ladies than the gents. He was leakingblood like those capsules we used to use with oleomargarine,in those good old days when oleo was white like lard. The huge black car pulled out and went up the street, bat-light shining off the top. It stopped in front of the ice-creamparlor at Filbert and Stockton. An agent got out and went in and bought two hundreddouble-decker ice-cream cones. He needed a wheelbarrowto get them back to the car.
THE LAST TIME I SAW TROUT FISHING IN AMERICAThe last time we met was in July on the Big Wood River, tenmiles away from Ketchum. It was just after Hemingway hadkilled himself there, but I didn't know about his death at thetime. I didn't know about it until I got back to San Franciscoweeks after the thing had happened and picked up a copy ofLife magazine. There was a photograph of Hemingway on thecover. "I wonder what Hemingway's up to, " I said to myself. Ilooked inside the magazine and turned the pages to his death.Trout Fishing in America forgot to tell me about it. I'm cer-tain he knew. It must have slipped his mind. The woman who travels with me had menstrual cramps.She wanted to rest for a while, so I took the baby and my spin-ning rod and went down to the Big Wood River. That's whereI met Trout Fishing in America. I was casting a Super-Duper out into the river and lettingit swing down with the current and then ride on the water upclose to the shore. It fluttered there slowly and Trout Fish-ing in America watched the baby while we talked. I remember that he gave her some colored rocks to playwith. She liked him and climbed up onto his lap and she start-ed putting the rocks in his shirt pocket. We talked about Great Falls, Montana. I told Trout Fish-ing in America about a winter I spent as a child in GreatFalls."It was during the war and I saw a Deanna Durbin movie seventimes, "I said. The baby put a blue rock in Trout Fishing in America'sshirt pocket and he said, "I've been to Great Falls manytimes. I remember Indians and fur traders. I rememberLewis and Clark, but I don't remember ever seeing a DeannaDurbin movie in Great Falls." "I know what you mean, " I said. "The other people inGreat Falls did not share my enthusiasm for Deanna Durbin,The theater was always empty. There was a darkness to thattheater different from any theater I've been in since. Maybeit was the snow outside and Deanna Durbin inside. I don'tknow what it was." "What was the name of the movie?" Trout Fishing in Am-erica said. "I don't know, " I said. "She sang a lot. Maybe she was achorus girl who wanted to go to college or she was a richgirl or they needed money for something or she did somethingWhatever it was about, she sang! and sang! but I can't re-member a God-damn word of it. "One afternoon after I had seen the Deanna Durbin movieagain, I went down to the Missouri River. Part of the Mis-souri was frozen over. There was a railroad bridge there.I was very relieved to see that the Missouri River had notchanged and begun to look like Deanna Durbin. "I'd had a childhood fancy that I would walk down to theMissouri River and it would look just like a Deanna Durbinmovie--a chorus girl who wanted to go to college or she wasa rich girl or they needed money for something or she dids something. "To this day I don't know why I saw that movie seventimes. It was just as deadly as The Cabinet of Doctor Cali-gari. I wonder if the Missouri River is still there?" I said. "It is, " Trout Fishing in America said smiling. "But itdoesn't look like Deanna Durbin. " The baby by this time had put a dozen or so of the coloredrocks in Trout Fishing in America's shirt pocket. He lookedat me and smiled and waited for me to go on about GreatFalls, but just then I had a fair strike on my Super-Duper. Ijerked the rod back and missed the fish. Trout Fishing in America said, "I know that fish who juststruck. You'll never catch him. " "Oh, " I said. "Forgive me, " Trout Fishing in America said. "Go onahead and try for him. He'll hit a couple of times more, butyou won't catch him. He's not a particularly smart fish. Justlucky. Sometimes that's all you need. " "Yeah, " I said. "You're right there. " I cast out again and continued talking about Great Falls. Then in correct order I recited the twelve least importantthings ever said about Great Falls, Montana. For the twelfthand least important thing of all, I said, "Yeah, the telephonewould ring in the morning. I'd get out of bed. I didn't have toanswer the telephone. That had all been taken care of, yearsin advance. "It would still be dark outside and the yellow wallpaper inthe hotel room would be running back off the light bulb. I'dput my clothes on and go down to the restaurant where mystepfather cooked all night. "I'd have breakfast, hot cakes, eggs and whatnot. Thenhe'd make my lunch for me and it would always be the samething: a piece of pie and a stone-cold pork sandwich. After-wards I'd walk to school. I mean the three of us, the HolyTrinity: me, a piece of pie, and a stone-cold pork sandwich.This went on for months. "Fortunately it stopped one day without my having to doanything serious like grow up. We packed our stuff and lefttown on a bus. That was Great Falls, Montana. You say theMissouri River is still there?" "Yes, but it doesn't look like Deanna Durbin, " Trout Fish-ing in America said. "I remember the day Lewis discoveredthe falls. They left their camp at sunrise and a few hourslater they came upon a beautiful plain and on the plain weremore buffalo than they had ever seen before in one place. "They kept on going until they heard the faraway sound ofa waterfall and saw a distant column of spray rising and dis-appearing. They followed the sound as it got louder and loud-er. After a while the sound was tremendous and they were atthe great falls of the Missouri River. It was about noon whenthey got there. "A nice thing happened that afternoon, they went fishingbelow the falls and caught half a dozen trout, good ones, too,from sixteen to twenty-three inches long. "That was June 13, 1805. "No, I don't think Lewis would have understood it if theMissouri River had suddenly begun to look like a Deanna Dur-bin movie, like a chorus girl who wanted to go to college, "Trout Fishing in America said.
IN THE CALIFORNIA BUSHI've come home from Trout Fishing in America, the highwaybent its long smooth anchor about my neck and then stopped.Now I live in this place. It took my whole life to get here, toget to this strange cabin above Mill Valley. We're staying with Pard and his girlfriend. They haverented a cabin for three months, June 15th to September 15th,for a hundred dollars. We are a funny bunch, all living heretogether. Pard was born of Okie parents in British Nigeria and cameto America when he was two years old and was raised as aranch kid in Oregon, Washington and Idaho. He was a machinegunner in the Second World War, againstthe Germans. He fought in France and Germany. SergeantPard. Then he came back from the war and went to somehick college in Idaho. After he graduated from college, he went to Paris and be-came an Existentialist, He had a photograph taken of Exis-tentialism and himself sitting at a sidewalk cafe. Pard wasWearing a beard and he looked as if he had a huge soul, withbarely enough room in his body to contain it. When Pard came back to America from Paris, he workedas a tugboat man on San Francisco Bay and as a railroadman in the roundhouse at Filer, Idaho. Of course, during this time he got married and had a kid.The wife and kid are gone now, blown away like apples by thefickle wind of the Twentieth Century. I guess the fickle windof alltime. The family that fell in the autumn. After he split up with his wife, he went to Arizona and wasa reporter and editor of newspapers. He honky-tonked inNaco, a Mexican border town, drank illescal Mescal Triunfo, playedcards and shot the roof of his house full of bullet holes. Pard tells a story about waking one morning in Naco, allhungover, with the whips and jingles. A friend of his was sit-ting at the table with a bottle of whisky beside him. Pard reached over and picked up a gun off a chair andtook aim at the whisky bottle and fired. His friend was thensitting there, covered with flecks of glass, blood and whisky."What the fuck you do that for?" he said. Now in his late thirties Pard works at a print shop for$1. 35 an hour. It is an avant-garde print shop. They printpoetry and experimental prose. They pay him $1. 35 an hourfor operating a linotype machine. A $1. 35 linotype operatoris hard to find, outside of Hong Kong or Albania. Sometimes when he goes down there, they don't even haveenough lead for him. They buy their lead like soap, a bar ortwo at a time. Pard's girlfriend is a Jew. Twenty-four years old, gettingover a bad case of hepatitis, she kids Pard about a nude pho-tograph of her that has the possibility of appearing in Playboymagazine. "There's nothing to worry about, " she says. "If they usethat photograph, it only means that 12, 000, 000 men will lookat my boobs. " This is all very funny to her. Her parents have money. Asshe sits in the other room in the California bush, she's onher father's payroll in New York. What we eat is funny and what we drink is even more hilar-ious: turkeys, Gallo port, hot dogs, watermelons, Popeyes,salmon croquettes, frappes, Christian Brothers port, orangerye bread, canteloupes, Popeyes, salads, cheese--booze,grub and Popeyes. Popeyes? We read books like The Thief's Journal, Set This Houseon Fire The Naked Lunch, Krafft-Ebing. We read Krafft-Ebing aloud all the time as if he were Kraft dinner. "The mayor of a small town in Eastern Portugal was seenone morning pushing a wheelbarrow full of sex organs intothe city hall. He was of tainted family. He had a woman'sshoe in his back pocket. It had been there all night. " Thingslike this make us laugh. The woman who owns this cabin will come back in the aut-umn. She's spending the summer in Europe. When she comesback, she will spend only one day a week out here: Saturday. She will never spend the night because she's afraid to. There is something here that makes her afraid. Pard and his girlfriend sleep in the cabin and the baby sleeps in the basement, and we sleep outside under the apple tree, waking at dawn to stare out across San Francisco Bay and then we go back to sleep again and wake once more, this time for a very strange thing to happen, and then we go back to sleep again after it has happened, and wake at sunrise to stare out across the bay. Afterwards we go back to sleep again and the sun rises steadily hour after hour, staying in the branches of a eucalyp- tus tree just a ways down the hill, keeping us cool and asleep and in the shade. At last the sun pours over the top of the tree and then we have to get up, the hot sun upon us. We go into the house and begin that two-hour yak-yak acti- vity we call breakfast. We sit around and bring ourselves slowly back to consciousness, treating ourselves like fine pieces of china, and after we finish the last cup of the last cup of the last cup of coffee, it's time to think about lunch or go to the Goodwill in Fairfax. So here we are, living in the California bush above Mill Valley. We could look right down on the main street of Mill Valley if it were not for the eucalyptus tree. We have to park the car a hundred yards away and come here along a tunnel- like path. If all the Germans Pard killed during the war with his machine-gun were to come and stand in their uniforms around this place, it would make us pretty nervous. There's the warm sweet smell of blackberry bushes along the path and in the late afternoon, quail gather around a dead unrequited tree that has fallen bridelike across the path. Some- times I go down there and jump the quail. I just go down there to get them up off their butts. They're such beautiful birds. They set their wings and sail on down the hill. O he was the one who was born to be king! That one, turn- ing down through the Scotch broom and going over an upside- down car abandoned in the yellow grass. That one, his gray wings . One morning last week, part way through the dawn, I awokeunder the apple tree, to hear a dog barking and the rapidsound of hoofs coming toward me. The millennium? An in-vasion of Russians all wearing deer feet? I opened my eyes and saw a deer running straight at me.It was a buck with large horns. There was a police dog chas-ing after it. Arfwowfuck ! Noisepoundpoundpoundpoundpoundpound IPOUND ! POUND ! The deer didn't swerve away. He just kept running straightat me, long after he had seen me, a second or two had passed. Arfwowfuckl Noisepoundpoundpoundpoundpoundpound!POUND I POUND ! I could have reached out and touched him when he went by. He ran around the house, circling the john, with the doghot after him. They vanished over the hillside, leavingstreamers of toilet paper behind them, flowing out and en-tangled through the bushes and vines. Then along came the doe. She started up the same way,but not moving as fast. Maybe she had strawberries in herhead. "Whoa!" I shouted. "Enough is enough! I'm not sellingnewspapers!" The doe stopped in her tracks, twenty-five feet away andturned and went down around the eucalyptus tree. Well, that's how it's gone now for days and days. I wakeup just before they come. I wake up for them in the samemanner as I do for the dawn and the sunrise. Suddenly know-ing they're on their way.
THE LAST MENTION OF TROUT FISHING IN AMERICA SHORTYSaturday was the first day of autumn and there was a festivalbeing held at the church of Saint Francis. It was a hot dayand the Ferris wheel was turning in the air like a thermo-meter bent in a circle and given the grace of music. But all this goes back to another time, to when my daught-er was conceived. We'd just moved into a new apartment andthe lights hadn't been turned on yet. We were surrounded byunpacked boxes of stuff and there was a candle burning likemilk on a saucer. So we got one in and we're sure it was theright one. A friend was sleeping in another room. In retrospect Ihope we didn't wake him up, though he has been awakened andgone to sleep hundreds of times since then. During the pregnancy I stared innocently at that growinghuman center and had no idea the child therein containedwould ever meet Trout Fishing in America Shorty. Saturday afternoon we went down to Washington Square.We put the baby down on the grass and she took off runningtoward Trout Fishing in America Shorty who was sitting un-der the trees by the Benjamin Franklin statue. He was on the ground leaning up against the right-handtree. There were some garlic sausages and some bread sit-ting in his wheelchair as if it were a display counter in astrange grocery store. The baby ran down there and tried to make off with one ofhis sausages. Trout Fishing in America Shorty was instantly alerted,then he saw it was a baby and relaxed. He tried to coax herto come over and sit on his legless lap. She hid behind hiswheelchair, staring past the metal at him, one of her handsholding onto a wheel. "Come here, kid, " he said. "Come over and see old TroutFishing in America Shorty. " Just then the Benjamin Franklin statue turned green likea traffic light, and the baby noticed the sandbox at the otherend of the park. The sandbox suddenly looked better to her than Trout Fish-ing in America Shorty. She didn't care about his sausagesany more either. She decided to take advantage of the green light, and shecrossed over to the sandbox. Trout Fishing in America Shorty stared after her as ifthe space between them were a river growing larger andlarger.
Part 5 of Trout Fishing in America
© Richard Brautigan
WORSEWICKWorsewick Hot Springs was nothing fancy. Somebody put someboards across the creek. That was it. The boards dammed up the creek enough to form a hugebathtub there, and the creek flowed over the top of the boards,invited like a postcard to the ocean a thousand miles away.As I said Worsewick was nothing fancy, not like theplaces where the swells go. There were no buildings around.We saw an old shoe lying by the tub. The hot springs came down off a hill and where they flowedthere was a bright orange scum through the sagebrush. Thehot springs flowed into the creek right there at the tub andthat' s where it was nice. We parked our car on the dirt road and went down and tookoff our clothes, then we took off the baby's clothes, and thedeerflies had at us until we got into the water, and then theystopped. There was a green slime growing around the edges of thetub and there were dozens of dead fish floating in our bath.Their bodies had been turned white by death, like frost oniron doors. Their eyes were large and stiff. The fish had made the mistake of going down the creek toofar and ending up in hot water, singing, "When you lose your money, learn to lose." We played and relaxed in the water. The green slime andthe dead fish played and relaxed with us and flowed out overus and entwined themselves about us. Splashing around in that hot water with my woman, I began to get ideas, as they say. After a while I placed my body in such a position in the water that the baby could not see my hard-on. I did this by going deeper and deeper in the water, like adinosaur, and letting the green slime and dead fish cover meover. My woman took the baby out of the water and gave her abottle and put her back in the car. The baby was tired. It wasreally time for her to take a nap. My woman took a blanket out of the car and covered up thewindows that faced the hot springs. She put the blanket ontopof the car and then lay rocks on the blanket to hold it in place.I remember her standing there by the car. Then she came back to the water, and the deerflies wereat her, and then it was my turn. After a while she said, "Idon't have my diaphragm with me and besides it wouldn'twork in the water, anyway. I think it's a good idea if youdon't come inside me. What do you think?" I thought this over and said all right. I didn't want anymore kids for a long time. The green slime and dead fishwere all about our bodies. I remember a dead fish floated under her neck. I waitedfor it to come up on the other side, and it came up on theother side. Worsewick was nothing fancy. Then I came, and just cleared her in a split secondlikean airplane in the movies, pulling out of a nosedive and sail-ing over the roof of a school. My sperm came out into the water, unaccustomed to thelight, and instantly it became a misty, stringy kind of thingand swirled out like a falling star, and I saw a dead fishcomeforward and float into my sperm, bending it in the middle.His eyes were stiff like iron.
THE SHIPPING OF TROUT FISHING IN AMERICA SHORTY TO NELSON ALGRENTrout Fishing in America Shorty appeared suddenly lastautumn in San Francisco, staggering around in a magnificentchrome-plated steel wheelchair. He was a legless, screaming middle-aged wine. He descended upon North Beach like a chapter from theOld Testament. He was the reason birds migrate in theautumn. They have to. He was the cold turning of the earth;the bad wind that blows off sugar. He would stop children on the street and say to them, "Iain't got no legs. The trout chopped my legs off in FortLauderdale. You kids got legs. The trout didn't chop yourlegs off. Wheel me into that store over there." The kids, frightened and embarrassed, would wheel TroutFishing in America Shorty into the store. It would always bea store that sold sweet wine, and he would buy a bottle ofwine and then he'd have the kids wheel him back out onto thestreet, and he would open the wine and start drinking thereon the street just like he was Winston Churchill. After a while the children would run and hide when theysaw Trout Fishing in America Shorty coming. "I pushed him last week, " "I pushed him yesterday, " "Quick, let's hide behind these garbage cans." And they would hide behind the garbage cans while TroutFishing in America Shorty staggered by in his wheelchair.The kids would hold their breath until he was gone. Trout Fishing in America Shorty used to go down toL'Italia, the Italian newspaper in North Beach at Stocktonand Green Streets. Old Italians gather in front of the news-paper in the afternoon and just stand there, leaning upagainst the building, talking and dying in the sun. Trout Fishing in America Shorty used to wheel into themiddle of them as if they were a bunch of pigeons, bottle ofwine in hand, and begin shouting obscenities in fake Italian.Tra-la-la-la-la-la-Spa-ghet-tiii ! I remember Trout Fishing in America Shorty passed outin Washington Square, right in front of the Benjamin Frank-lin statue. He had fallen face first out of his wheelchair andjust lay there without moving. Snoring loudly. Above him were the metal works of Benjamin Franklinlike a clock, hat in hand. Trout Fishing in America Shorty lay there below, hisface spread out like a fan in the grass. A friend and I got to talking about Trout Fishing in America Shorty one afternoon. We decided the best thing to do witl:him was to pack him in a big shipping crate with a couple ofcases of sweet wine and send him to Nelson Algren. Nelson Algren is always writing about Railroad Shorty, ahero of the Neon Wilderness (the reason for "The Face onthe Barroom Floor") and the destroyer of Dove Linkhorn inA Walk on the Wild Side. We thought that Nelson Algren would make the perfectcustodian for Trout Fishing in America Shorty. Maybe amuseum might be started. Trout Fishing in America Shortycould be the first piece in an important collection. We would nail him up in a packing crate with a big labelon it. Contents: Trout Fishing in America Shorty Occupation: WineAddress:C/O Nelson AlgrenChicago And there would be stickers all over the crate, saying:"GLASS/HANDLE WITH CARE/SPECIAL HANDLING/GLASS/DON'T SPILL/THIS SIDE UP/HANDLE THIS WINO LIKE HEWAS AN ANGEL" And Trout Fishing in America Shorty, grumbling, pukingand cursing in his crate would travel across America, fromSan Francisco to Chicago. And Trout Fishing in America Shorty, wondering what itwas all about, would travel on, shouting, "Where in the hellam I? I can't see to open this bottle ! Who turned out thelights? Fuck this motel! I have to take a piss ! Where's mykey ?" It was a good idea. A few days after we made our plans for Trout Fishing inAmerica Shorty, a heavy rain was pouring down upon SanFrancisco. The rain turned the streets inward, likedrowned lungs, upon themselves and I was hurrying to work,meeting swollen gutters at the intersections. I saw Trout Fishing in America Shorty passed out in thefront window of a Filipino laundromat. He was sitting inhis wheelchair with closed eyes staring out the window. There was a tranquil expression on his face. He almostlooked human. He had probably fallen asleep while he washaving his brains washed in one of the machines. Weeks passed and we never got around to shipping TroutFishing in America Shorty away to Nelson Algren. We keptputting it off. One thing and another. Then we lost our gold-en opportunity because Trout Fishing in America Shorty dis-appeared a little while after that. They probably swept him up one morning and put him injail to punish him, the evilfart, or they put him in a nut-house to dry him out a little. Maybe Trout Fishing in America Shorty just pedaled downto San Jose in his wheelchair, rattling along the freeway ata quarter of a mile an hour. I don't know what happened to him. But if he comes backto San Francisco someday and dies, I have an idea. Trout Fishing in America Shorty should be buried rightbeside the Benjamin Franklin statue in Washington Square.We should anchor his wheelchair to a huge gray stone andwrite upon the stone: Trout Fishing in America Shorty 20 cent Wash 10 cent Dry Forever
THE MAYOR OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURYLondon. On December 1, 1887; July 7, August 8, September30, one day in the month of October and on the 9th of Novem-ber, 1888; on the Ist of June, the 17th of July and the IOthof September 1889 The disguise was perfect. Nobody ever saw him, except, of course, the victims.They saw him. Who would have expected? He wore a costume of trout fishing in America. He woremountains on his elbows and bluejays on the collar of hisshirt. Deep water flowed through the lilies that were entwinedabout his shoelaces. A bullfrog kept croaking in his watchpocket and the air was filled with the sweet smell of ripeblackberry bushes. He wore trout fishing in America as a costume to hidehis own appearance from the world while he performed hisdeeds of murder in the night.Who would have expected? Nobody ! Scotland Yard? (Pouf !) They were always a hundred miles away, wearing halibut-stalker hats, looking under the dust. Nobody ever found out. 0, now he's the Mayor of the Twentieth Century ! A razor,a knife and a ukelele are his favorite instruments. Of course, it would have to be a ukelele. Nobody elsewould have thought of it, pulled like a plow through the intest-ines.ON PARADISE"Speaking of evacuations, your missive, while complete inother regards, skirted the subject, though you did deal brief-ly with rural micturition procedure. I consider this a grossoversight on your part, as I'm certain you're well aware ofmy unending fascination with camp-out crapping. Pleaserush details in your next effort. Slit-trench, pith helmet,slingshot, biffy and if so number of holes and proximity ofkeester to vermin and deposits of prior users." --From a Letter by a Friend Sheep. Everything smelled of sheep on Paradise Creek,but there were no sheep in sight. I fished down from theranger station where there was a huge monument to the Civi-lian Conservation Corps. It was a twelve-foot high marble statue of a young manwalking out on a cold morning to a crapper that had the das-sic half-moon cut above the door. The 1930s will never come again, but his shoes werewet with dew. They'll stay that way in marble. I went off into the marsh. There the creek was soft andspread out in the grass like a beer belly. The fishing wasdifficult. Summer ducks were jumping up into flight. Theywere big mallards with their Rainier Ale-like offspring. I believe I saw a woodcock. He had a long bill like puttinga fire hydrant into a pencil sharpener, then pasting it ontoa bird and letting the bird fly away in front of me with thisthing on its face for no other purpose than to amaze me. I worked my way slowly out of the marsh until the creekagain became a muscular thing, the strongest ParadiseCreek in the world. I was then close enough to see the sheep.There were hundreds of them. Everything smelled of sheep. The dandelions were sudden-ly more sheep than flower, each petal reflecting wool andthe sound of a bell ringing off the yellow. But the thing thatsmelled the most like sheep, was the very sun itself. Whenthe sun went behind a cloud, the smell of the sheep decreasedlike standing on some old guy's hearing aid, and when thesun came back again, the smell of the sheep was loud, likea clap of thunder inside a cup of coffee. That afternoon the sheep crossed the creek in front ofmy hook. They were so close that their shadows fell acrossmy bait. I practically caught trout up their assholes.
THE CABINET OFDOCTORCALIGARIOnce water bugs were my field. I remember that childhoodspring when I studied the winter-long mud puddles of thePacific Northwest. I had a fellowship. My books were a pair of Sears Roebuck boots, ones withgreen rubber pages. Most of my classrooms were close tothe shore. That's where the important things were happen-ing and that's where the good things were happening. Sometimes as experiments I laid boards out into the mudpuddles, so I could look into the deeper water but it was notnearly as good as the water in close to the shore. The water bugs were so small I practically had to lay myvision like a drowned orange on the mud puddle. There is aromance about fruit floating outside on the water, aboutapples and pears in rivers and lakes. For the first minuteor so, I saw nothing, and then slowly the water bugs cameinto being. I saw a black one with big teeth chasing a white one witha bag of newspapers slung over its shoulder, two white onesplaying cards near the window, a fourth white one staringback with a harmonica in its mouth. I was a scholar until the mud puddles went dry and then Ipicked cherries for two-and-a-half cents a pound in an oldorchard that was beside a long, hot dusty road. The cherry boss was a middle-aged woman who was a realOkie. Wearing a pair of goofy overalls, her name was RebelSmith, and she'd been a friend of "Pretty Boy" Floyd's downin Oklahoma. "I remember one afternoon'Pretty Boy' camedriving up in his car. I ran out onto the front porch. " Rebel Smith was always smoking cigarettes and showingpeople how to pick cherries and assigning them to trees andwriting down everything in a little book she carried in hershirt pocket. She smoked just half a cigarette and then threwthe other half on the ground. For the first few days of the picking, I was always seeingher half-smoked cigarettes lying all over the orchard, nearthe john and around the trees and down the rows. Then she hired half-a-dozen bums to pick cherries be-cause the picking was going too slowly. Rebel picked thebums up on skidrow every morning and drove them out tothe orchard in a rusty old truck. There were always half-a-dozen bums, but sometimes they had different faces. After they came to pick cherries I never saw any more ofher half-smoked cigarettes lying around. They were gonebefore they hit the ground. Looking back on it, you mightsay that Rebel Smith was anti-mud puddle, but then you miglnot say that at all.
Part 3 of Trout Fishing in America
© Richard Brautigan
SEA, SEA RIDER
The man who owned the bookstore was not magic. He was not athree-legged crow on the dandelion side of the mountain. He was, of course, a Jew, a retired merchant seamanwho had been torpedoed in the North Atlantic and floatedthere day after day until death did not want him. He had ayoung wife, a heart attack, a Volkswagen and a home inMarin County. He liked the works of George Orwell, RichardAldington and Edmund Wilson. He learned about life at sixteen, first from Dostoevskyand then from the whores of New Orleans. The bookstore was a parking lot for used graveyards.Thousands of graveyards were parked in rows like cars.Most of the kooks were out of print, and no one wanted toread them any more and the people who had read the bookshad died or forgotten about them, but through the organicprocess of music the books had become virgins again. Theywore their ancient copyrights like new maidenheads. I went to the bookstore in the afternoons after I got offwork, during that terrible year of 1959. He had a kitchen in the back of the store and he brewedcups of thick Turkish coffee in a copper pan. I drank coffeeand read old books and waited for the year to end. He had asmall room above the kitchen. It looked down on the bookstore and had Chinese screensin front of it. The room contained a couch, a glass cabinetwith Chinese things in it and a table and three chairs. Therewas a tiny bathroom fastened like a watch fob to the room. I was sitting on a stool in the bookstore one afternoonreading a book that was in the shape of a chalice. The bookhad clear pages like gin, and the first page in the book read: Billy the Kid born November 23, 1859 in New York City The owner of the bookstore came up to me, and put hisarm on my shoulder and said, "Would you like to get laid?"His voice was very kind. "No, " I said. "You're wrong, " he said, and then without saying anythingelse, he went out in front of the bookstore, and stopped a pairof total strangers, a man and a woman. He talked to them fora few moments. I couldn't hear what he was saying. He pointedat me in the bookstore. The woman nodded her head andthen the man nodded his head. They came into the bookstore. I was embarrassed. I could not leave the bookstore becausethey were entering by the only door, so I decided to goupstairs and go to the toilet. I got up abruptly and walkedto the back of the bookstore and went upstairs to the bathroom,and they followed after me. I could hear them on the stairs. I waited for a long time in the bathroom and they waitedan equally long time in the other room. They never spoke.When I came out of the bathroom, the woman was lying nakedon the couch, and the man was sitting in a chair with hishat on his lap. "Don't worry about him, " the girl said. "These thingsmake no difference to him. He's rich. He has 3, 859 RollsRoyces." The girl was very pretty and her body was like aclear mountain river of skin and muscle flowing over rocksof bone and hidden nerves. "Come to me, " she said. "And come inside me for we areAquarius and I love you." I looked at the man sitting in the chair. He was not smilingand he did not look sad. I took off my shoes and all my clothes. The man did not say a word. The girl's body moved ever so slightly from side to side. There was nothing else I could do for my body was likebirds sitting on a telephone wire strung out down the world,clouds tossing the wires carefully. I laid the girl. It was like the eternal 59th second when it becomes a minuteand then looks kind of sheepish. "Good, " the girl said, and kissed me on the face. The man sat there without speaking or moving or sendingout any emotion into the room. I guess he was rich and owned3, 859 Rolls Royces. Afterwards the girl got dressed and she and the man left.They walked down the stairs and on their way out, I heardhim say his first words. "Would you like to go to Emie's for dinner?" "I don't know, " the girl said. "It's a little early to thinkabout dinner. " Then I heard the door close and they were gone. I gotdressed and went downstairs. The flesh about my body feltsoft and relaxed like an experiment in functional backgroundmusic. The owner of the bookstore was sitting at his desk behindthe counter. "I'11 tell you what happened up there, " he said,in a beautiful anti-three-legged-crow voice, in an anti-dandelionside of the mountain voice. "What?"I said. "You fought in the Spanish Civil War. You were a youngCommunist from Cleveland, Ohio. She was a painter. A NewYork Jew who was sightseeing in the Spanish Civil War as ifit were the Mardi Gras in New Orleans being acted out byGreek statues. "She was drawing a picture of a dead anarchist when youmet her. She asked you to stand beside the anarchist and actas if you had killed him. You slapped her across the faceand said something that would be embarrassing for me torepeat.You both fell very much in love. "Once while you were at the front she read Anatomy ofMelancholy and did 349 drawings of a lemon. "Your love for each other was mostly spiritual.Neitherone of you performed like millionaires in bed. "When Barcelona fell, you and she flew to England, andthen took a ship back to New York. Your love for each otherremained in Spain. It was only a war love. You loved onlyyourselves, loving each other in Spain during the war. Onthe Atlantic you were different toward each other and becameevery day more and more like people lost from each other. "Every wave on the Atlantic was like a dead seagull draggingits driftwood artillery from horizon to horizon. "When the ship bumped up against America, you departedwithout saying anything and never saw each other again. Thelast I heard of you, you were still living in Philadelphia. ""That's what you think happened up there?" I said."Partly, " he said. "Yes, that's part of it. " He took out his pipe and filled it with tobacco and lit it. "Do you want me to tell you what else happened up there?"he said. "Go ahead." "You crossed the border into Mexico, " he said. "Yourode your horse into a small town. The people knew whoyou were and they were afraid of you. They knew you hadkilled many men with that gun you wore at your side. Thetown itself was so small that it didn't have a priest. "When the rurales saw you, they left the town. Tough asthey were, they did not want to have anything to do with you.The rurales left. You became the most powerful man in town. You were seduced by a thirteen-year-old girl, and youand she lived together in an adobe hut, and practically allyou did was make love. "She was slender and had long dark hair. You made lovestanding, sitting, lying on the dirt floor with pigs and chickensaround you. The walls, the floor and even the roof of thehut were coated with your sperm and her come. "You slept on the floor at night and used your sperm fora pillow and her come for a blanket. "The people in the town were so afraid of you that theycould do nothing. "After a while she started going around town without anyclothes on, and the people of the town said that it was not agood thing, and when you started going around without anyclothes, and when both of you began making love on the backof your horse in the middle of the zocalo, the people of thetown became so afraid that they abandoned the town. It'sbeen abandoned ever since. "People won't live there. "Neither of you lived to be twenty-one. It was not neces-sary. "See, I do know what happened upstairs, " he said. Hesmiled at me kindly. His eyes were like the shoelaces of aharpsichord. I thought about what happened upstairs. "You know what I say is the truth, " he said. "For yousaw it with your own eyes and traveled it with your own body.Finish the book you were reading before you were interrupted.I'm glad you got laid. " Once resumed the pages of the book began to speed upand turn faster and faster until they were spinning like wheelsin the sea.
THE LAST YEAR THE TROUT CAME UP HAYMAN CREEKGone now the old fart. Hayman Creek was named forCharles Hayman, a sort of half-assed pioneer in a countrythat not many wanted to live in because it was poor and uglyand horrible, He built a shack, this was in 1876, on a littlecreek that drained a worthless hill. After a while the creekwas called Hayman Creek. Mr. Hayman did not know how to read or write and consideredhimself better for it. Mr. Hayman did odd jobs for yearsand years and years and years. Your mule's broke? Get Mr. Hayman to fix it. Your fences are on fire? Get Mr. Hayman to put them out. Mr.- Hayman lived on a diet of stone-ground wheat andkale. He bought the wheat by the hundred-pound sack andground it himself with a mortar and pestle. He grew the kalein front of his shack and tended the kale as if it were prizewinning orchids. During all the time that was his life, Mr. Hayman neverhad a cup of coffee, a smoke, a drink or a woman and thoughthe'd be a fool if he did. In the winter a few trout would go up Hayman Creek, butby early summer the creek was almost dry and there wereno fish in it. Mr. Hayman used to catch a trout or two and eat rawtrout with his stone-ground wheat and his kale, and then oneday he was so old that he did not feel like working any more,and he looked so old that the children thought he must be evilto live by himself, and they were afraid to go up the creeknear his shack. It didn't bother Mr. Hayman. The last thing in the worldhe had any use for were children. Reading and writing andchildren were all the same, Mr. Hayman thought, andground his wheat and tended his kale and caught a trout ortwo when they were in the creek. He looked ninety years old for thirty years and then hegot the notion that he would die, and did so. The year he diedthe trout didn't come up Hayman Creek, and never went upthe creek again. With the old man dead, the trout figured itwas better to stay where they were. The mortar and pestle fell off the shelf and broke. The shack rotted away. And the weeds grew into the kale. Twenty years after Mr. Hayman's death, some fish andgame people were planting trout in the streams around there."Might as well put some here, " one of the men said."Sure, " the other one said. They dumped a can full of trout in the creek and no soonerhad the trout touched the water, than they turned their whitebellies up and floated dead down the creek.
TROUT DEATH BY PORT WINEIt was not an outhouse resting upon the imagination. It was reality. An eleven-inch rainbow trout was killed. Its life takenforever from the waters of the earth, by giving it a drink ofport wine. It is against the natural order of death for a trout to dieby having a drink of port wine. It is all right for a trout to have its neck broken by a fishermanand then to be tossed into the creel or for a trout to die froma fungus that crawls like sugar-colored ants over its bodyuntil the trout is in death's sugarbowl. It is all right for a trout to be trapped in a pool that driesup in the late summer or to be caught in the talons of a birdor the claws of an animal. Yes, it is even all right for a trout to be killed by pollution,to die in a river of suffocating human excrement. There are trout that die of old age and their white beardsflow to the sea. All these things are in the natural order of death, but fora trout to die from a drink of port wine, that is another thing. No mention of it in "The treatyse of fysshynge wyth anangle," in the Boke of St. Albans, published 1496. No mentionof it in Minor Tactics of the Chalk Stream, by H. C. Cutcliffe,published in 1910. No mention of it in Truth Is Stranger than Fishin',by Beatrice Cook, published in 1955. No mention of it inNorthern Memoirs, by Richard Franck, published in 1694.No mention of it in I Go A-Fishing, by W. C. Prime, publishedin 1873. No mention of it in Trout Fishing and Trout Flies, by JimQuick, published in 1957. No mention of it in Certaine ExperimentsConcerning Fish and Fruite, by John Taverner, published in 1600.No mention of it in A River Never Sleeps, by Roderick L. Haig Brown,published in 1946. No mention of it in Till Fish US Do Part, by BeatriceCook published in 1949. No mention of it in The Flyfisher & theTrout's Point of View by Col. E.W.Harding, publishedin 1931. No mention of it in Chalk Stream Studies, by CharlesKingsley, published in 1859 No mention of it in Trout Madnessby Robert Traver, published in 1960. No mention of it in Sunshine and the Dry Fly, by J. W.Dunne, published in 1924. No mention of it in Just Fishing,by Ray Bergman, published in 1932. No mention of it in Matchingthe Hatch by Ernest G. Schwiebert, Jr,, published in 1955. No mentionof it in The Art of Trout Fishing on Rapid Streams by H. C. Cutcliffe,published in 1863. No mention of it in Old Flies in New Dresses byC.E. Walker, published in 1898 No mention of it in Fisherman'sSpring, by Roderick L, Haig-Brown, published in 1951.No mention of it in The Determined angler and the Brook Trout,by Charles Bradford, published in 1916. No mention of it in WomenCan Fish by Chisie Farrington, published in 1951. No mentionof it in Tales of the Angler's El Dorado New new Zelandby Zane Grey, published in 1926. No mention of it in The Flyfisher'sGuide, by G.C. Bainbridge, published in 1816. There's no mention of a trout dying by having a drink ofport wine anywhere. To describe the Supreme Executioner: We woke up in themorning and it was dark outside. He came kind of smilinginto the kitchen and we ate breakfast.Fried potatoes and eggs and coffee. "Well, you old bastard, " he said. "Pass the salt. " The tackle was already in the car, so we just got in anddrove away. Beginning at the first light of dawn we hit theroad at the bottom of the mountains, and drove up into thedawn. The light behind the trees was like going into a gradualand strange department store. "That was a good-looking girl last night, " he said."Yeah, "I said. "You did all right. ""If the shoe fits....." he said. Owl Snuff Creek was just a small creek, only a few mileslong, but there were some nice trout in it. We got out of thecar and walked a quarter of a mile down the mountainside tothe creek I put my tackle together. He pulled a pint of portwine out of his pocket and said wouldn't you know." "No thanks," I said. He took a good snort and then shook his head, side to side,and said, "Do you know what this creek reminds me of?""No," I said, tying a gray and yellow fly onto my leader."It reminds me of Evageline's vagina, a constant dreamof my childhood and promoter of my youth.""That's nice," I said."Longfellow was the Henry Miller of my childhood," hesaid."Good," I said.I cast into a little pool that had a swirl of fir needles goingaround the edge of it. The fir needles went around and around.It made no sense that they should come from trees. They lookedperfectly contented and natural in the pool as if the pool hadgrown them on watery branches. I had a good hit on my third cast, but missed it. "Oh, boy, " he said. "I think I'11 watch you fish. The stolenpainting is in the house next door. " I fished upstream coming ever closer and closer to thenarrow staircase of the canyon. Then I went up into it as ifI were entering a department store. I caught three trout inthe lost and found department. He didn't even put his tackletogether. He just followed after me, drinking port wine andpoking a stick at the world. "This is a beautiful creek, " he said. "It reminds me ofEvangeline's hearing aid. " We ended up at a large pool that was formed by the creekcrashing through the children's toy section. At the beginningof the pool the water was like cream, then it mirrored outand reflected the shadow of a large tree. By this time thesun was up. You could see it coming down the mountain. I cast into the cream and let my fly drift down onto alongbranch of the tree, next to a bird. Go-wham ! I set the hook and the trout started jumping. "Giraffe races at Kilimanjaro!" he shouted, and everytime the trout jumped, he jumped. "Bee races at Mount Everest !" he shouted. I didn't have a net with me so I fought the trout over tothe edge of the creek and swung it up onto the shore.The trout had a big red stripe down its side. It was a good rainbow. "What a beauty, " he said. He picked it up and it was squirming in his hands."Break its neck, " I said. "I have a better idea, " he said. "Before I kill it, let meat least soothe its approach into death. This trout needs adrink. " He took the bottle of port out of his pocket, unscrewedthe cap and poured a good slug into the trout's mouth. The trout went into a spasm. Its body shook very rapidly like a telescope during anearthquake. The mouth was wide open and chattering almostas if it had human teeth. He laid the trout on a white rock, head down, and someof the wine trickled out of its mouth and made a stain on therock. The trout was lying very still now. "It died happy, " he said. "This is my ode to Alcoholics Anonymous. "Look here !"
Part 2 of Trout Fishing in America
© Richard Brautigan
ANOTHER METHOD OF MAKING WALNUT CATSUPAnd this is a very small cookbook for Trout Fishing in Americaas if Trout Fishing in America were a rich gourmet andTrout Fishing in America had Maria Callas for a girlfriendand they ate together on a marble table with beautiful candles.Compote of ApplesTake a dozen of golden pippins, pare themnicely and take the core out with a smallpenknife; put them into some water, andlet them be well scalded; then take a littleof the water with some sugar, and a fewapples which may be sliced into it, andlet the whole boil till it comes to a syrup;then pour it over your pippins, and garnishthem with dried cherries and lemon-peelcut fine. You must take care that yourpippins are not split.And Maria Callas sang to Trout Fishing in America asthey ate their apples together.A Standing Crust for Great PiesTake a peck of flour and six pounds of butterboiled in a gallon of water: skim it off intothe flour, and as little of the liquor as youcan. Work it up well into a paste, and thenpull it into pieces till it is cold. Then makeit up into what form you please.And Trout Fishing in America smiled at Maria Callas asthey ate their pie crust together.A Spoonful PuddingTake a spoonful of flour, a spoonful ofcream or milk, an egg, a little nutmeg,ginger, and salt. Mix all together, andboil it in a little wooden dish half an hour.If you think proper you may add a fewcurrants . And Trout Fishing in America said, "The moon's comingout." And Maria Callas said, "Yes, it is." Another Method of Making Walnut Catsup Take green walnuts before the shell is formed, and grind them in a crab-mill, or pound them in a marble mortar. Squeeze out the juice through a coarse cloth, and put to every gallon of juice a pound of anchovies, and the same quantity of bay-salt, four ounces of Jamaica pepper, two of long and two of black pepper; of mace, cloves, and ginger, each an ounce, and a stick of horseradish. Boil all together till reduced to half the quantity, and then put it into a pot. When it is cold, bottle it close, and in three months it will be fit for use. And Trout Fishing in America and Maria Callas pouredwalnut catsup on their hamburgers.PROLOGUE TO GRIDER CREEKMooresville, Indiana, is the town that John Dillinger camefrom, and the town has a John Dillinger Museum. You cango in and look around. Some towns are known as the peach capital of America orthe cherry capital or the oyster capital, and there's alwaysa festival and the photograph of a pretty girl in a bathing suit. Mooresville, Indiana, is the John Dillinger capital of America. Recently a man moved there with his wife, and he discoveredhundreds of rats in his basement. They were huge, slowmovingchild-eyed rats. When his wife had to visit some of her relatives for a fewdays, the man went out and bought a .38 revolver and a lotof ammunition. Then he went down to the basement wherethe rats were, and he started shooting them. It didn't botherthe rats at all. They acted as if it were a movie and startedeating their dead companions for popcorn. The man walked over to a rat that was busy eating a friendand placed the pistol against the rat's head. The rat did notmove and continued eating away. When the hammer clickedback, the rat paused between bites and looked out of the cornerof its eye. First at the pistol and then at the man. It was a kindof friendly look as if to say, "When my mother was young shesang like Deanna Durbin. " The man pulled the trigger. He had no sense of humor. There's always a single feature, a double feature and aneternal feature playing at the Great Theater in Mooresville,Indiana: the John Dillinger capital of America.
GRIDER CREEKI had heard there was some good fishing in there and it wasrunning clear while all the other large creeks were runningmuddy from the snow melting off the Marble Mountains. I also heard there were some Eastern brook trout in there,high up in the mountains, living in the wakes of beaver darns. The guy who drove the school bus drew a map of GriderCreek, showing where the good fishing was. We were standingin front of Steelhead Lodge when he drew the map. It wasa very hot day. I'd imagine it was a hundred degrees. You had to have a car to get to Grider Creek where thegood fishing was, and I didn't have a car. The map was nice,though. Drawn with a heavy dull pencil on a piece of paperbag. With a little square for a sawmill.
THE BALLET FOR TROUT FISHING IN AMERICAHow the Cobra Lily traps insects is a ballet for Trout Fishingin America, a ballet to be performed at the University ofCalifornia at Los Angeles. The plant is beside me here on the back porch. It died a few days after I bought it at Woolworth's. Thatwas months ago, during the presidential election of nineteenhundred and sixty. I buried the plant in an empty Metrecal can. The side of the can says, "Metrecal Dietary for WeightControl, " and below that reads, "Ingredients: Non-fat milksolids, soya flour, whole milk solids, sucrose, starch, cornoil, coconut oil, yeast, imitation vanilla, " but the can's onlya graveyard now for a Cobra Lily that has turned dry andbrown and has black freckles. As a kind of funeral wreath, there is a red, white andblue button sticking in the plant and the words on it say, "I'mfor Nixon." The main energy for the ballet comes from a descriptionof the Cobra Lily. The description could be used as a welcomemat on the front porch of hell or to conduct an orchestraof mortuaries with ice-cold woodwinds or be an atomicmailman in the pines, in the pines where the sun never shines. "Nature has endowed the Cobra Lily with the means ofcatching its own food. The forked tongue is covered withhoney glands which attract the insects upon which it feeds.Once inside the hood, downward pointing hairs prevent theinsect from crawling out. The digestive liquids are found inthe base of the plant. "The supposition that it is necessary to feed the CobraLily a piece of hamburger or an insect daily is erroneous. "I hope the dancers do a good job of it, they hold ourimagination in there feet, dancing in Los Angles for TroutFishing in America.
A WALDEN POND FOR WINOSThe autumn carried along with it, like the roller coaster ofa flesh-eating plant, port wine and the people who drank thatdark sweet wine, people long since gone, except for me. Always wary of the police, we drank in the safest placewe could find, the park across from the church. There were three poplar trees in the middle of the parkand there was a statue of Benjamin Franklin in front of thetrees. We sat there and drank port. At home my wife was pregnant. I would call on the telephone after I finished work and say,"I won't be home for a little while. I'm going to have a drinkwith some friends. " The three of us huddled in the park, talking. They wereboth broken-down artists from New Orleans where they haddrawn pictures of tourists in Pirate's Alley. Now in San Francisco, with the cold autumn wind uponthem, they had decided that the future held only two directions:They were either going to open up a flea circus or committhemselves to an insane asylum. So they talked about it while they drank wine. They talked about how to make little clothes for fleas bypasting pieces of colored paper on their backs. They said the way that you trained fleas was to make themdependent upon you for their food. This was done by letting themfeed off you at an appointed hour. They talked about making little flea wheelbarrows andpool tables and bicycles. They would charge fifty-cents admission for their flea circus.The business was certain to have a future to it. Perhaps theywould even get on the Ed Sullivan Show. They of course did not have their fleas yet, but they couldeasily be obtained from a white cat. Then they decided that the fleas that lived on SiameseCats would probably be more intelligent than the fleas thatlived on just ordinary alley cats. It only made sense thatdrinking intelligent blood would make intelligent fleas. And so it went on until it was exhausted and we went andbought another fifth of port wine and returned to the treesand Benjamin Franklin. Now it was close to sunset and the earth was beginning tocool off in the correct manner of eternity and office girlswere returning like penguins from Montgomery Street. Theylooked at us hurriedly and mentally registered: winos. Then the two artists talked about committing themselvesto an insane asylum for the winter. They talked about howwarm it would be in the insane asylum, with television, cleansheets on soft beds, hamburger gravy over mashed potatoes,a dance once a week with the lady kooks, clean clothes alocked razor and lovely young student nurses. Ah, yes, there was a future in the insane asylum. Nowinter spent there could be a total loss.
On Being Human
© Clive Staples Lewis
The Tree-ness of the tree they know-the meaning of
Arboreal life, how from earth's salty lap
The solar beam uplifts it; all the holiness
Enacted by leaves' fall and rising sap;
Cliche Came Out of its Cage
© Clive Staples Lewis
1You said 'The world is going back to Paganism'.
Oh bright Vision! I saw our dynasty in the bar of the House
Spill from their tumblers a libation to the Erinyes,
And Leavis with Lord Russell wreathed in flowers, heralded with flutes,
After Prayers, Lie Cold
© Clive Staples Lewis
Arise my body, my small body, we have striven
Enough, and He is merciful; we are forgiven.
Arise small body, puppet-like and pale, and go,
White as the bed-clothes into bed, and cold as snow,
Death Of A Poet
© Ronald Stuart Thomas
Laid now on his smooth bed
For the last time, watching dully
Through heavy eyelids the day's colour
Widow the sky, what can he say
A Peasant
© Ronald Stuart Thomas
Iago Prytherch his name, though, be it allowed,
Just an ordinary man of the bald Welsh hills,
Who pens a few sheep in a gap of cloud.
Docking mangels, chipping the green skin
On The Death Of Friends In Childhood
© Donald Justice
We shall not ever meet them bearded in heaven
Nor sunning themselves among the bald of hell;
If anywhere, in the deserted schoolyard at twilight,
forming a ring, perhaps, or joining hands
In games whose very names we have forgotten.
Come memory, let us seek them there in the shadows.
Toad Dreams
© Marge Piercy
That afternoon the dream of the toads
rang through the elms by Little River
and affected the thoughts of men,
though they were not conscious that
they heard it.--Henry Thoreau
Dohas II (with translation)
© Kabir
Jab Tun Aaya Jagat Mein, Log Hanse Tu Roye
Aise Karni Na Kari, Pache Hanse Sab Koye
[When you were born in this world
Everyone laughed while you cried
Cut Grass
© Philip Larkin
Cut grass lies frail:
Brief is the breath
Mown stalks exhale.
Long, long the death
