Your Catfish Friend by Richard Brautigan

Your Catfish Friend

by Richard Brautigan

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 yourself, "I wonder if there are any catfish in this pond?It seems like a perfect place for them."

A Boat ...a review

A Boat

BY RICHARD BRAUTIGAN

O beautiful

was the werewolf

in his evil forest.

We took him

to the carnival

and he started

crying

when he saw

the Ferris wheel.

Electric

green and red tears

flowed down

his furry cheeks.

He looked

like a boat

out on the dark

water.

It seems strange to me that this is one of my favorite poems. I love the imagery it provides. 

   I also like that it allows the reader no clue on the meanings of its symbolism, so it may mean something different to each person. I think that is one of the most beautiful aspects of poetry, when the author leaves some mystery, lets you come to your own conclusions.

 

    My interpretation of this poem is as follows:

 

    Over simplified, I believe this poem is a contrast between good and evil. The evil/darkness being the werewolf and his forest home and the good/light being the carnival.

    It was very touching to me the thought of a creature that knew no lightness or goodness to see it for the first time. To cry at the sight of it. Imagine spending your whole life in a dark place full of struggle and then peeking in on a whole other way of life. You must feel like a victim of circumstances I loved picturing the reflection of the Ferris wheel lights in the werewolves tears. Perhaps he was crying out of sheer awe of seeing something so different from what he has ever known, something so good, such a change from his evil world. He might be crying also because though he could witness such a good happy place, he could never be a part of it. He would always be different and unable to enjoy such things along with everyone else.

    At the end of the poem " he was like a boat out on dark water".... for me this represented loneliness, hopelessness and alienation. Werewolves are often portrayed as being alone and alienated, different from all of mankind but partly the same. His alienation represented by the lone boat surrounded by water. Unreachable.

Don't do Drugs Kids

I used to not be able to understand why people became addicted to drugs. I didn't get how people I knew could totally transform into these creatures who were filled with such constant desperation. How can someone I have known for my whole life all of a sudden within the course of a few months become a totally different person - a person who I don't know- a person who doesn't care about anything or anyone. How can someone not care that they are ruining everything that they have spent their whole lives trying to build. Relationships, job history, security, credit., trust. All gone.

I was overwhelmed by the loneliness of their world. why cant they just stop.

I think I'm starting to understand now, how doors keep closing around you and your self expectations start to dissolve. I never realized that they were running from things other than cops. Memories , guilt, disappointment, abuse, things that creep up on you things you want to push back down- deeper and deeper so you wont have to see it again.

Riding a bicycle on the beach at sunset.

This was one of those moments where everything was perfect. These perfect moments tip toe up to you . They shyly romance you.

I just breath deep and pretend that this was how every moment has been spent. I can imagine that my life is only a succession of fuzzy moment after fuzzy moment. A string of memories over flowing with the calm of well being. Everything fades away..I have never been cold or hungry or poor. I have never been alone I have never been sinking alone lost in the blackness of living . Where it feels like my chest is breaking and crumbing inside. No, I can never forget that slow ache of loss but at this moment it doesn’t matter and with every night like this one it will matter less and less.

The carnival lights were pulsating slowly in the near distance. Faint screams of enjoyment, the sound of wind whipping through young girls hair. I can feel them smiling the kind of smile you cant quit no matter how hard you try the kind of smile that makes your cheeks sore. Those bright golden lights red green gold. Blinking like sleepy eyes in the retiring sky. These fuzzy electric bulbs glowing like soft laughing eyes All of the machines were oiled with care to cradle these children tonight. They swing them around and around like your fathers strong arms swung you through the air so long ago.

The sound of seashells cracking under the black salty rubber of my bicycle tires. I can feel the slight resistance and then the release , giving in, cracking quietly. The muggy night was warm and heavy like a blanket from the dryer. Gliding through the dusk along the breaking waves. My skin speckled with tiny grains of sand at salt . The breeze turning into wind as I’m slicing through the heat of this summer night. There is nothing like the sound of the oceans waters crashing upon its self as happy tumbling children do. Nights like this I cannot separate myself from my surroundings. I cannot tell where I end and the night begins. Warm as a lovers breath on my bare neck. I am wrapped in it, so protected, so encased in this enchantment. I am hypnotized.. a young girl in love. I am being courted so slowly by this warm southern night. My troubles are being sung to sleep by the sounds around me. The sounds of endless expanses. The sound of happiness that doesn't end but just evolves. I am being swept across the powdery beach by the soft arms of June. My hair is tangling itself in the wind being lifted and coaxed by its smooth invisible fingers. Everything is buzzing around me so gently vibrating with possibilities. I can live like this forever. This is something that I wont let go of. Its not something to chase after it’s gone, it's something that sinks in deeply. It soaks in and infiltrates all of me. This moment this night this memory is my life. It is happiness.

Looking for Alaska

"I thought at first that she was just dead. Just darkness. Just a body being eaten by bugs. I thought about her a lot like that, as something’s meal. What was her - green eyes, half a smirk, the soft curves of her legs - would soon be nothing, just the bones I never saw. I thought about the slow process of becoming bone and then fossil and then coal that will, in millions of years, be mined by humans of the future, and how they would heat their homes with her, and then she would be smoke billowing out of a smokestack, coating the atmosphere. I still think that, sometimes, think that maybe “the afterlife” is just something we made up to ease the pain of loss, to make our time in the labyrinth bearable. Maybe she was just matter, and matter gets recycled."

He promised you nights out dancing and long days in bed.

This is the dead of winter. This is the icy core of all things lost.

This is my most ruthless demon, shredding my flesh with regret.

One sided love is always a lingering death.

In dreams I am always reacting. In dreams I cannot shrug things off, I cannot turn away.

I am made to stare this ghost in its bloodless face and feel it inflating my lungs with longing.

These invisible things kill me.