April 16, 2004
It’s raining in love
by Richard Brautigan
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.
Last line’s the killer. So smug!
But he didn’t get the last laugh though. He shot himself in the head four or five weeks before his body was found.
More here.
Ugh. Don’t fucking distribute that low-rent bio. I’ll find a new one. I forbid anyone to look at that one until I find one worth more than the dung in a dingo’s ass.
Posted by: Jonathan at April 16, 2004 12:57 PMThis one will do:
http://www.litkicks.com/BeatPages/page.jsp?what=RichardBrautigan
First off, Brautigan is not considered anything like a Beat by poets. Brautigan was part of the San Francisco Renaissance, which included Philip Whalen and Joanne Kyger. Perhaps that bio you posted is right to say that he acheived only marginal success as a poet, assuming that success as a poet is determined by people who don’t love poetry. I assure you that poets hold Brautigan in very high regard.
In any case, the facts were mangled: to not know that Brautigan lived out his last decade and committed suicide in Bolinas is to miss not only a crucial part of Brautigan’s story, but to warp the story of 20th Century American poetry.
Also: I have a bigger penis than any of you.
Posted by: Jonathan at April 16, 2004 01:11 PMWhen I was first getting interested in poetry, I picked a few books off the (very sparsely populated) poetry shelf at my local library. Fortunately, a book of Brautigan’s was one of them, and he became one of my favorites. But I haven’t read anything of his in a while — thanks for reminding me, Karen!
Posted by: Cheshire at April 17, 2004 03:44 AMYou know, I’m almost embarrassed to say that I had never heard of the guy until the day I stumbled on this poem.
But I do like what I’ve seen so far.
Posted by: Karen at April 20, 2004 03:55 PMagain via Beautiful Stuff, I should just syndicate that site.
Posted by: Karen at April 28, 2004 11:55 PMkaren,
simply lovely..
where did you write it (inside your home, sitting on your desk? outside on your porch?..on a bus?) also..what time of day?
curious..
Um, I didn’t write that! Of course I wish I did.
Posted by: Karen at May 4, 2004 06:56 PM