Love Poem for R.B.
Today I heard on the radio that Richard Brautigan
Killed himself last fall.
Then some girl who was 17 in 1970 read his Love Poem.
She said that her then lover was a DJ on a college
Station and had dedicated a recording of the poem
To her, over the air, before he disappeared in a
Californian direction.
Anyway, I don’t know where I was.
Maybe I was washing clothes or asleep even.
Maybe I was with Jenny or Eva or somebody.
I could a been drunk, or depressed
As if by some sort of intuition.
All I really know is that I’ll never know where I was
When he did it.
I wonder how he did it.
Maybe I should go down to the library look him
Up on the newspaper micro-film file?
Most likely I won’t though, the library is closed now
And I’m not sure I care that much anyway.
Besides it’s one of those details I’m sure will
Accidentally find its way to me.
It kinda pisses me off that he did it, I mean he
Wrote that Watermelon Sugar book, I read it years ago
When Mary gave it to me and I, 15 in 1970.
Watermelon Sugar and Mary my first lover go good together.
I don’t know about this suicide stuff though.
But maybe it’s nice not having to wake up alone with yourself
When you just don’t want to any more.
6/6/85
from: Still Wishing To be Ravens, new poems
by pd lyons
2009, Myo, Myo & Razooka
Winetown Castlepollard; Ireland
