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Shoes, Bicycle
Listening to the Japanese night,
the window is closed and the curtain pulled,
I think it is raining outside.
It's comforting. I love the rain.
I am in a city that I have never been before:
Tokyo.
I think it is raining. Then I hear a storm begin.
I'm slightly drunk:
people walking by in the street,
a bicycle.
Taxi Drivers Look Different from
Their Photographs
There is no difference
between Tokyo and New York.
These men do not look
like their photographs.
These are different men.
I'm not being fooled in the
least. Complete strangers drive
these cabs.
Talking
I am the only American in this bar.
Everybody else is Japanese.
(reasonable / Tokyo)
I speak English.
They speak Japanese.
(of course)
They try to speak English. It's hard.
I can't speak any Japanese. I can't help.
We talk for a while, trying.
Then they switch totally to Japanese
for ten minutes.
They laugh. They are serious.
They pause between words.
I am alone again. I've been there before
in Japan, America, everywhere when you
don't understand what somebody is
talking about.
On the Elevator Going Down
A Caucasian gets on at
the 17th floor.
He is old, fat and expensively
dressed.
I say hello / I'm friendly.
He says, "Hi."
Then he looks very carefully at
my clothes.
I'm not expensively dressed.
I think his left shoe costs more
than everything I am wearing.
He doesn't want to talk to me
any more.
I think that he is not totally aware
that we are really going down
and there are no clothes after you have
been dead for a few thousand years.
He thinks as we silently travel
down and get off at the bottom
floor
that we are going separate
Ways.
Ego Orgy on a Rainy Night in Tokyo
with Nobody to Make Love to
The night is now
half-gone; youth
goes; I am
in bed alone
My books have been translated
into
Norwegian, French, Danish, Romanian,
Spanish, Japanese, Dutch, Swedish,
Italian, German, Finnish, Hebrew
and published in England
but
I will sleep alone tonight in Tokyo
raining.
Taxi Driver
I like this taxi driver,
racing through the dark streets
of Tokyo
as if life had no meaning.
I feel the same way.
Tokyo
June I7, I976
IO P.M.
Land of the Rising Sun
sayonara
Flying from Japanese night,
we left Haneda Airport in Tokyo
four hours ago at 9:30 P.M.
June 30th
and now we are flying into the sunrise
over the Pacific that is on its way
to Japan
where darkness lies upon the land
and the sun is hours away.
I greet the sunrise of July 1st
for my Japanese friends,
wishing them a pleasant day.
The sun is on its
Way.
June 30th again
above the Pacific
across the international date line
heading home to America
with part of my heart
in Japan
From "June 30th, June 30th" by Richard Brautigan. Published in 1978 by Delacorte Press/Seymour Lawrence.
Lines from "Sappho: A New Translation". Translated by Mary Barnard. Published in 1958 by The Regents of the University of California.
Richard Brautigan
He was born on January 30, 1935 in Tacoma, Washington. He wrote twenty-two books, and is an internationally-known author whose work has been translated into fifteen languages, including fifteen books that have been translated into Japanese. He started out his writing career as a poet, and he published 10 poetry books since 1957. But generally, Brautigan is known as a novelist for his publications, like "Trout Fishing in America", "The Tokyo-Montana Express", etc.. When he was in his early twenties, he moved to San Francisco and became involved with the Beat Movement. In 1979 Brautigan became acquainted with Gary Snyder at the meeting of the Modern Language Association in that city. He committed suicide at home in Bolinas, California, on October 25, 1984. He was 49 years old at the time.
reference: extracts from Introduction of this book
Copyright 1977, 1978 by Richard Brautigan
Photograph Copyright 1971 by Kazue D.
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