Music poems
/ page 219 of 253 /
Celestial Music
© Louise Gluck
I have a friend who still believes in heaven.
Not a stupid person, yet with all she knows, she literally talks to God.
She thinks someone listens in heaven.
On earth she's unusually competent.
Brave too, able to face unpleasantness.
Parable Of The Dove
© Louise Gluck
A dove lived in a village.
When it opened its mouth
sweetness came out, sound
like a silver light around
the cherry bough. But
the dove wasn't satisfied.
Science
© Wilcox Ella Wheeler
Alone I climb the steep ascending path
Which leads to knowledge. In the babbling throngs
Yes, the Fish Music
© Richard Brautigan
A trout-colored wind blows
through my eyes, through my fingers,
and I remember how the trout
used to hide from the dinosaurs
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 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 10 of Trout Fishing in America
© Richard Brautigan
WITNESS FOR TROUT FISHING IN AMERICA PEACEIn San Francisco around Easter time last year, they had atrout fishing in America peace parade. They had thousandsof red stickers printed and they pasted them on their smallforeign cars, and on means of national communication liketelephone poles. The stickers had WITNESS FOR TROUT FISHING IN AM-ERICA PEACE printed on them. Then this group of college- and high-school-trained Com-munists, along with some Communist clergymen and theirMarxist-taught children, marched to San Francisco fromSunnyvale, a Communist nerve center about forty miles away. It took them four days to walk to San Francisco. Theystopped overnight at various towns along the way, and slepton the lawns of fellow travelers. They carried with them Communist trout fishing in Ameri-ca peace propaganda posters:"DON'T DROP AN H-BOMB ON THE OLD FISHING HOLE I" "ISAAC WALTON WOULD'VE HATED THE BOMB!" "ROYAL COACHMAN, SI! ICBM, NO!" They carried with them many other trout fishing in Amer-ica peace inducements, all following the Communist worldconquest line: the Gandhian nonviolence Trojan horse. When these young, hard-core brainwashed members ofthe Communist conspiracy reached the "Panhandle, " theemigre Oklahoma Communist sector of San Francisco, thou-sands of other Communists were waiting for them. Thesewere Communists who couldn't walk very far. They barelyhad enough strength to make it downtown. Thousands of Communists, protected by the police, marcheddown to Union Square, located in the very heart of San Fran-cisco. The Communist City Hall riots in 1960 had presentedevidence of it, the police let hundreds of Communists escape,but the trout fishing in America peace parade was the finalindictment: police protection. Thousands of Communists marched right into the heart ofSan Francisco, and Communist speakers incited them forhours and the young people wanted to blow up Colt Tower, butthe Communist clergy told them to put away their plasticbombs. "Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men shoulddo to you, do ye even so to them . . . There will be no needfor explosives, " they said. America needs no other proof. The Red shadow of theGandhian nonviolence Trojan horse has fallen across Ameri-ca, and San Francisco is its stable. Obsolete is the mad rapist's legendary piece of candy. Atthis very moment, Communist agents are handing out Witnessfor trout fishing in America peace tracts to innocent childrenriding the cable cars.
FOOTNOTE CHAPTER TO "RED LIP"Living in the California bush we had no garbage service. Ourgarbage was never greeted in the early morning by a manwith a big smile on his face and a kind word or two. Wecouldn't burn any of the garbage because it was the dry seas-on and everything was ready to catch on fire anyway, includ-ing ourselves. The garbage was a problem for a little whileand then we discovered a way to get rid of it. We took the garbage down to where there were three aban-doned houses in a row. We carried sacks full of tin cans,papers, peelings, bottles and Popeyes. We stopped at the last abandoned house where there werethousands of old receipts to the San Francisco Chroniclethrown all over the bed and the children's toothbrushes werestill in the bathroom medicine cabinet. Behind the place was an old outhouse and to get down to it,you had to follow the path down past some apple trees and apatch of strange plants that we thought were either a goodspice that would certainly enhance our cooking or the plantswere deadly nightshade that would cause our cooking to beless. We carried the garbage down to the outhouse and alwaysopened the door slowly because that was the only way youcould open it, and on the wall there was a roll of toilet paper,so old it looked like a relative, perhaps a cousin, to the Mag-na Carta. We lifted up the lid of the toilet and dropped the garbagedown into the darkness. This went on for weeks and weeksuntil it became very funny to lift the lid of the toilet and in-stead of seeing darkness below or maybe the murky abstractoutline of garbage, we saw bright, definite and lusty garbageheaped up almost to the top. If you were a stranger and went down there to take an in-nocent crap, you would've had quite a surprise when you lift-ed up the lid. We left the California bush just before it became necessaryto stand on the toilet seat and step into that hole, crushingthe garbage down like an accordion into the abyss.
THE CLEVELAND WRECKING YARDUntil recently my knowledge about the Cleveland WreckingYard had come from a couple of friends who'd bought thingsthere. One of them bought a huge window: the frame, glassand everything for just a few dollars. It was a fine-lookingwindow. Then he chopped a hole in the side of his house up onPotrero Hill and put the window in. Now he has a panoramicview of the San Francisco County Hospital. He can practically look right down into the wards and seeold magazines eroded like the Grand Canyon from endlessreadings. He can practically hear the patients thinking aboutbreakfast: I hate milk and thinking about dinner: I hate peas,and then he can watch the hospital slowly drown at night,hopelessly entangled in huge bunches of brick seaweed. He bought that window at the Cleveland Wrecking Yard. My other friend bought an iron roof at the Cleveland Wreck-ing Yard and took the roof down to Big Sur in an old stationwagon and then he carried the iron roof on his back up theside of a mountain. He carried up half the roof on his back.It was no picnic. Then he bought a mule, George, from Pleas-anton. George carried up the other half of the roof. The mule didn't like what was happening at all. He lost alot of weight because of the ticks, and the smell of the wild-cats up on the plateau made him too nervous to graze there.My friend said jokingly that George had lost around two hun-dred pounds. The good wine country around Pleasanton in theLivermore Valley probably had looked a lot better to Georgethan the wild side of the Santa Lucia Mountains. My friend's place was a shack right beside a huge fire-place where there had once been a great mansion during the1920s, built by a famous movie actor. The mansion was builtbefore there was even a road down at Big Sur. The mansionhad been brought over the mountains on the backs of mules,strung out like ants, bringing visions of the good life to thepoison oak, the ticks, and the salmon. The mansion was on a promontory, high over the Pacific.Money could see farther in the 1920s and one could look outand see whales and the Hawaiian Islands and the Kuomintangin China. The mansion burned down years ago. The actor died. His mules were made into soap. His mistresses became bird nests of wrinkles. Now only the fireplace remains as a sort of Carthaginianhomage to Hollywood. I was down there a few weeks ago to see my friend's roof.I wouldn't have passed up the chance for a million dollars,as they say. The roof looked like a colander to me. If thatroof and the rain were running against each other at BayMeadows, I'd bet on the rain and plan to spend my winningsat the World's Fair in Seattle. My own experience with the Cleveland Wrecking Yard be-gan two days ago when I heard about a used trout streamthey had on sale out at the Yard. So I caught the Number 15bus on Columbus Avenue and went out there for the first time. There were two Negro boys sitting behind me on the bus.They were talking about Chubby Checker and the Twist. Theythought that Chubby Checker was only fifteen years old be-cause he didn't have a mustache. Then they talked about someother guy who did the twist forty-four hours in a row untilhe saw George Washington crossing the Delaware. "Man, that's what I call twisting, " one of the kids said. "I don't think I could twist no forty-four hours in a row, "the other kid said. "That's a lot of twisting. " I got off the bus right next to an abandoned Time Gasolinefilling station and an abandoned fifty-cent self-service carwash. There was a long field on one side of the filling station.The field had once been covered with a housing project dur-ing the war, put there for the shipyard workers. On the other side of the Time filling station was the Cleve-land Wrecking Yard. I walked down there to have a look atthe used trout stream. The Cleveland Wrecking Yard has avery long front window filled with signs and merchandise. There was a sign in the window advertising a laundry marking machine for $65. 00. The original cost of the mach- ine was $175. 00. Quite a saving. There was another sign advertising new and used two and three ton hoists. I wondered how many hoists it would take to move a trout stream. There was another sign that said: THE FAMILY GIFT CENTER, GIFT SUGGESTIONS FOR THE ENTIRE FAMILY The window was filled with hundreds of items for the en- tire family. Daddy, do you know what I want for Christmas? son? A bathroom. Mommy do you know what I want for Christmas? What, Patricia? Some roofing material There were jungle hammocks in the window for distant relatives and dollar-ten-cent gallons of earth-brown enamel paint for other loved ones. There was also a big sign that said: USED TROUT STREAM FOR SALE. MUST BE SEEN TO BE APPRECIATED, I went inside and looked at some ship's lanterns that were for sale next to the door. Then a salesman came up to me and said in a pleasant voice, "Can I help you?" "Yes, " I said. "I'm curious about the trout stream you have for sale. Can you tell me something about it? How are you selling it?" "We're selling it by the foot length. You can buy as little as you want or you can buy all we've got left. A man came in here this morning and bought 563 feet. He's going to give it to his niece for a birthday present, " the salesman said. "We're selling the waterfalls separately of course, and the trees and birds, flowers grass and ferns we're also sell- ing extra. The insects we're giving away free with a mini- mum purchase of ten feet of stream. " "How much are you selling the stream for?" I asked. "Six dollars and fifty-cents a foot, " he said. "That's for the first hundred feet. After that it's five dollars a foot." "How much are the birds?" I asked. "Thirty-five cents apiece, " he said. "But of course they're used. We can't guarantee anything." "How wide is the stream?" I asked. "You said you wereselling it by the length, didn't you?" "Yes, " he said. "We're selling it by the length. Its widthruns between five and eleven feet. You don't have to pay any-thing extra for width. It's not a big stream, but it's verypleasant. " "What kinds of animals do you have 7" I asked. "We only have three deer left, " he said. "Oh What about flowers 7" "By the dozen, " he said. "Is the stream clear?" I asked. "Sir, " the salesman said. "I wouldn't want you to thinkthat we would ever sell a murky trout stream here. We al-ways make sure they're running crystal clear before we eventhink about moving them. " "Where did the stream come from?" I asked. "Colorado, " he said. "We moved it with loving care. We'venever damaged a trout stream yet. We treat them all as ifthey were china. " "You're probably asked this all the time, but how's fish-ing in the stream?" I asked. "Very good, " he said. "Mostly German browns, but thereare a few rainbows. " "What do the trout cost?" I asked. "They come with the stream, " he said. "Of course it's allluck. You never know how many you're going to get or howbig they are. But the fishing's very good, you might say it'sexcellent. Both bait and dry fly, " he said smiling. "Where's the stream at?" I asked. "I'd like to take a lookat it. " "It's around in back, " he said. "You go straight throughthat door and then turn right until you're outside. It's stackedin lengths. You can't miss it. The waterfalls are upstairs inthe used plumbing department. " "What about the animals?" "Well, what's left of the animals are straight back fromthe stream. You'll see a bunch of our trucks parked on aroad by the railroad tracks. Turn right on the road and fol-low it down past the piles of lumber. The animal shed's rightat the end of the lot. " "Thanks, " I said. "I think I'11 look at the waterfalls first.You don't have to come with me. Just tell me how to get thereand I'11 find my own way. "All right, " he said. "Go up those stairs. You'll see abunch of doors and windows, turn left and you'll find theused plumbing department. Here's my card if you need anyhelp. " "Okay, " I said. "You've been a great help already. Thanksa lot. I'11 take a look around." "Good luck, " he said. I went upstairs and there were thousands of doors there.I'd never seen so many doors before in my life. You couldhave built an entire city out of those doors. Doorstown. Andthere were enough windows up there to build a little suburbentirely out of windows. Windowville. I turned left and went back and saw the faint glow of pearl-colored light. The light got stronger and stronger as I wentfarther back, and then I was in the used plumbing department,surrounded by hundreds of toilets. The toilets were stacked on shelves. They were stackedfive toilets high. There was a skylight above the toilets thatmade them glow like the Great Taboo Pearl of the South Seamovies. Stacked over against the wall were the waterfalls. Therewere about a dozen of them, ranging from a drop of a fewfeet to a drop of ten or fifteen feet. There was one waterfall that was over sixty feet long.There were tags on the pieces of the big falls describing thecorrect order for putting the falls back together again. The waterfalls all had price tags on them. They weremore expensive than the stream. The waterfalls were sellingfor $19.00 a foot. I went into another room where there were piles of sweet-smelling lumber, glowing a soft yellow from a different colorskylight above the lumber. In the shadows at the edge of theroom under the sloping roof of the building were many sinksand urinals covered with dust, and there was also anotherwaterfall about seventeen feet long, lying there in two lengthsand already beginning to gather dust. I had seen all I wanted of the waterfalls, and now I wasvery curious about the trout stream, so I followed the sales-man's directions and ended up outside the building. O I had never in my life seen anything like that troutstream. It was stacked in piles of various lengths: ten, fif-teen, twenty feet, etc. There was one pile of hundred-footlengths. There was also a box of scraps. The scraps werein odd sizes ranging from six inches to a couple of feet. There was a loudspeaker on the side of the building andsoft music was coming out. It was a cloudy day and seagullswere circling high overhead. Behind the stream were big bundles of trees and bushes.They were covered with sheets of patched canvas. You couldsee the tops and roots sticking out the ends of the bundles. I went up close and looked at the lengths of stream. Icould see some trout in them. I saw one good fish. I sawsome crawdads crawling around the rocks at the bottom. It looked like a fine stream. I put my hand in the water.It was cold and felt good. I decided to go around to the side and look at the animals.I saw where the trucks were parked beside the railroadtracks. I followed the road down past the piles of lumber,back to the shed where the animals were. The salesman had been right. They were practically outof animals. About the only thing they had left in any abun-dance were mice. There were hundreds of mice. Beside the shed was a huge wire birdcage, maybe fiftyfeet high, filled with many kinds of birds. The top of the cagehad a piece of canvas over it, so the birds wouldn't get wetwhen it rained. There were woodpeckers and wild canariesand sparrows. On my way back to where the trout stream was piled, Ifound the insects. They were inside a prefabricated steelbuilding that was selling for eighty-cents a square foot. Therewas a sign over the door. It said INSECTS
A HALF-SUNDAY HOMAGE TO A WHOLE LEONARDO DA VINCIOn this funky winter day in rainy San Francisco I've had avision of Leonardo da Vinci. My woman's out slaving away,no day off, working on Sunday. She left here at eight o'clockthis morning for Powell and California. I've been sitting hereever since like a toad on a log dreaming about Leonardo daVinci. I dreamt he was on the South Bend Tackle Company pay-roll, but of course, he was wearing different clothes andspeaking with a different accent and possessor of a differentchildhood, perhaps an American childhood spent in a townlike Lordsburg, New Mexico, or Winchester, Virginia. I saw him inventing a new spinning lure for trout fishingin America. I saw him first of all working with his imagina-tion, then with metal and color and hooks, trying a little ofthis and a little of that, and then adding motion and then tak-ing it away and then coming back again with a different motion,and in the end the lure was invented. He called his bosses in. They looked at the lure and allfainted. Alone, standing over their bodies, he held the lurein his hand and gave it a name. He called it "The Last Supper."Then he went about waking up his bosses. In a matter of months that trout fishing lure was the sen-sation of the twentieth century, far outstripping such shallowaccomplishments as Hiroshima or Mahatma Gandhi. Millionsof "The Last Supper" were sold in America. The Vatican or-dered ten thousand and they didn't even have any trout there. Testimonials poured in. Thirty-four ex-presidents of theUnited States all said, ''I caught my limit on 'The Last Supper.'''
Less Time
© Richard Brautigan
Less time than it takes to say it, less tears than it takes to die; I've taken account
of everything, there you have it. I've made a census of the stones, they are as numerous
as my fingers and some others; I've distributed some pamphelts to the plants, but not all
were willing to accpet them. I've kept company with music for a second only and now I no
Gee, You're So Beautiful That It's Starting To Rain
© Richard Brautigan
Oh, Marcia,
I want your long blonde beauty
to be taught in high school,
so kids will learn that God
A Blackbird Singing
© Ronald Stuart Thomas
It seems wrong that out of this bird,
Black, bold, a suggestion of dark
Places about it, there yet should come
Such rich music, as though the notes'
Ore were changed to a rare metal
At one touch of that bright bill.
Faure's Second Piano Quartet
© James Schuyler
On a day like this the rain comes
down in fat and random drops among
the ailanthus leaves---"the tree
of Heaven"---the leaves that on moon-
Korean Mums
© James Schuyler
beside me in this garden
are huge and daisy-like
(why not? are not
oxeye daisies a chrysanthemum?),
Memory Of My Father
© Patrick Kavanagh
Every old man I see
Reminds me of my father
When he had fallen in love with death
One time when sheaves were gathered.
The Song Of Shadows
© Walter de la Mare
"Sweep thy faint strings, Musician,
With thy long lean hand;
Downward the starry tapers burn,
Sinks soft the waning sand;
The Fool Rings His Bells
© Walter de la Mare
Come, Death, I'd have a word with thee;
And thou, poor Innocency;
And Love -- a lad with broken wing;
Apnd Pity, too;
The Fool shall sing to you,
As Fools will sing.
Tartary
© Walter de la Mare
If I were Lord of Tartary,
Myself, and me alone,
My bed should be of ivory,
Of beaten gold my throne;
Sunk Lyonesse
© Walter de la Mare
In sea-cold Lyonesse,
When the Sabbath eve shafts down
On the roofs, walls, belfries
Of the foundered town,
