Richard Brautigan
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 yourself, “I wonder
if there are any catfish
in this pond? It seems like
a perfect place for them.”
•
Rant:
I have no idea about this one:
Last night in my dream I saw someone dying a horrific death in a house that i know, this house used to be in my neighborhood, the owner declared bankruptcy, they sold the house and the new owner is building a new house in the same plot, as if no one has memories there – I do and don’t really care about this –
I thought about those people when I woke up from my dream around 3 AM and laid in my bed awake for an hour or so – I sort of resisted the urge to fall back to sleep, for some reason I thought it’d be rude to the person who died in my dream…also wanted to remember the dream more in deatil – I saw something in that dream, something I did not wanted to let go easily. Once I start feeling more awake I wrote a poem about words and poetry and poets… (why I don’t know.. sometimes I do know why I write a certain poem..sometimes I don’t.)
When I went back to sleep I dreamed another dream – this one was much more pleasant. My mother was in it, and there was Jazz… Dream world is strange… one moment you watch a house burn and people die, one moment you are listening to music and you are talking a stroll in the old town of your hometown.
a few lines from draft of the poem I wrote on my phone:
“Come to think of it,
words are not
what makes the poems
poets just warp
(emotions) in them,
and serve them to
people”
There were two similarities — in both dreams I was in my hometown and in both dreams I felt an unmistakable sense of invisibleness and alone-ness. I was not happy, but I was not lonely either – I was just an alone Peyman – or as Coleman Barks would say “I’m unrepentently, sufficiently, some would say terribly, alone. Look at me and be frightened..” — I told you I don’t know where I am going with this… but isn’t the whole point of some of my rants to say whatever I want? Maybe you can see me.. in my bed… laying there after a wild dream…
I like this poem.. I like the image of that catfish… I don’t think I’m anyone’s catfish friend though… I like being alone – but I am learning that there are sacrifices you have to make to be alone and there are sacrifices you ought not to make… and goodness that line is a thin one to walk on! that Rilke line :
“I am much too alone in this world, yet not alone
enough”
One Poem At A Time 