"POSTCARD" and other Brautigan poems

it seems somehow appropriate for this Friday (the end of a REALLY crappy week) to end with a lil' more Brautigan. These will likely be the last of his poems that I post for awhile...



POSTCARD
I wonder if eighty-four-year-old Colonel Sanders
ever gets tired of traveling all around America
talking about fried chicken




RIGHT BESIDE THE MORNING COFFEE
If I write this down now, I
will have it in the morning.
The question is: Do I want
to start the day off with
this?




THE AMELIA EARHART PANCAKE

I have been unable to find a poem
For this title. I’ve spent years
Looking for one and now I’m giving
Up.
November 3, 1970




ATTILA AT THE GATES
OF THE TELEPHONE COMPANY

They said that
My telephone
Would be fixed
By 6.
They guaranteed
It.




THE LAST SURPRISE

The last surprise is when you come
Gradually to realize that nothing
Surpises you any more.




DEATH LIKE A NEEDLE

Death like a needle
Made from a drunken clown’s breath
Where the shadow of a [I can’t make
The next two words out. I first
Wrote this poem in longhand] to your
Shadow.




VICKEY SLEEPS WITH DEAD PEOPLE

Part 8

Vickey sleeps out in the woods
With dead people but she always
Combs her hair in the morning.
Her parents don’t understand her.
And she doesn’t understand them.
They try. She tries.. The dead
People try. They will all work
It out someday.




MOLLY

Part 13

Molly is afraid to go into the attic.
She’s afraid if she went up there
And saw the box of clothes that she
Used to wear twenty years ago,
She would start crying.