A Candlelion Poem and A Good-Talking Candle by Richard Brautigan

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.

A Good-Talking Candle

I had a good-talking candle
last night in my bedroom.

I was very tired but I wanted
somebody to be with me,
    so I lit a candle

and listened to its comfortable
voice of light until I was asleep.

By Richard Brautigan from the collection The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster.

Your Catfish Friend, by Richard Brautigan and Lumen - Empty Monastery, Visiting Dharma - Guile with a friend from Cypress Terrace by Meng Hao Jan

Your Catfish Friend

If I were to live my life
in catfish forms
in scaffolds of skin and whiskers
at the bottom of a pond
and you were to come by
     one evening
when the moon was shining
down into my dark home
and stand there at the edge
     of my affection
and think, "It's beautiful
here by this pond. I wish
      somebody loved me,"
I'd love you and be your catfish
friend and drive such lonely
thoughts from your mind
and suddenly you would be
     at peace,
and ask youself,"I wonder
if there are any catfish
in this pond? It seems like
a perfect place for them."

From The Pill Versus The Springhill Mine Disaster.


Lumen - Empty Monastery, Visiting Dharma - Guile with a friend from Cypress Terrace

It's a delight to meet, set out, and together
visit Master Dharma - Guile's ch'an stillness

where people never go. At his stone hut
we only find a tiger dozing in a hammock,

shadowy wind harbouring perennial snows,
springwater welling up into pine cascades.

We came from lives so different - but here,
dharma mats offer a joy we share utterly.

Richard Brautigan "A High Building in Singapore".

It's a high building in Singapore that holds the only beauty for this San Francisco day where I am walking down the street, feeling terrible and watching my mind function with the efficiency of a liquid pencil.

A young mother passes by talking to her little girl who is really too small to talk, but she's talking anyway and very excitedly to her mother about something. I can't quite make out what she is saying because she's so little.

I mean, this is a tiny kid.

Then her mother answers her to explode my day with a goofy illumination. "It was a high building in Singapore," she says to the little girl who enthusiastically replies like a bright sound-coloured penny, " Yes, it was a high building in Singapore!"

Written by Richard Brautigan, part of the collection "Revenge of the Lawn". Published by Rebel Inc, Canon Gate, 1997. First published 1972. 

Chinese Poem and Richard Brautigan.

Seeking but not Finding the Recluse
Under pines
I ask the boy:

he says "My master's gone
to gather herbs.

I only know
he's on this mountain,

But the clouds are too deep
to know where."
By Chia Tao, translated by Mike O'Connor.

Excerpt from "In Watermelon Sugar by Richard Brautigan"
Moths fluttered above the light that came out of the river from the tombs below. There were five or six moths fluttering over each tomb.
              Suddenly a big trout jumped out of the water above a tomb and got one of the moths. The other moths scattered and then came back again, and the same trout jumped again and got another moth. He was a smart old trout.
              The trout did not jump any more and the moths fluttered peacefully above the light coming from the tombs.

From the chapter "Vegetables".