Richard Brautigan - random poetry

All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace

...
I like to think
  (it has to be!)
of a cybernetic ecology
where we are free of our labors
and joined back to nature,
returned to our mammal
brothers and sisters,
and all watched over
by machines of loving grace.


Love Poem

   It's so nice
to wake up in the morning
   all alone
and not have to tell somebody
   you love them
when you don't love them
   any more.


A CandleLion Poem

           For Michael

Turn a candle inside out
and you've got the smallest 
portion of a lion standing
there at the edge of the 
   shadows.



I Live in the Twentieth Century

            For Marcia

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



The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster

When you take your pill
it's like a mine disaster.
I think of all the people
   lost inside of you.



The Nature Poem

The moon 
is Hamlet
on a motorcycle
coming down
a dark road.
He is wearing
a black leather
jacket and
boots.
I have 
nowhere 
to go.
I will ride
all night.



It's Raining in Love

I don't know what it is,
but I distrust myself
when I start to like a girl
   a lot.

It makes me nervous.
I don't say the right things
or perhaps I start
   to examine,
             evaluate,
                      compute
   what I am saying.

If I say, "Do you think it's going to rain?"
and she says, "I don't know,"
I start thinking:    Does she really like me?

In other words
I get a little creepy.

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

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

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