Baudelaire opened
up a hamburger stand
in San Francisco,
but he put flowers
between the buns.
People would come in
and say, “Give me a
hamburger with plenty
of onions on it.”
Baudelaire would give
them a flowerburger
instead and the people
would say, “What kind
of a hamburger stand
is this?”
About "The Flowerburgers"
"The Flowerburgers is part 4 of Richard Brautigan's series The Galilee Hitch-Hiker. The Galilee Hitch-Hiker is a single poem in nine numbered and differently titled parts. Each features a fictional story about Charles Baudelaire, the 19th-century French poet maudit. In part 1, Baudelaire picks up Jesus hitch-hiking on his way to Golgotha. In later section he drinks with a San Francisco wino, buys a jeweled cat, and smokes opium at a baseball game. In part 8 "Baudelaire went/ to the insane asylum/ disguised as a/ psychiatrist./ He stayed there/ for two months/ and when he left,/ the insane asylum/ loved him so much/ that it followed/ him all over/ California,/ and Baudelaire/ laughed when the/ insane asylum/ rubbed itself/ up against his/ leg like a/ strange cat." A notation at end of poem series states "San Francisco February 1958."
The Galilee Hitch-Hiker was first published in May 1958 by White Rabbit Press in a limited run of 200 copies. It was Brautigan's second poetry book publication. All nine parts of The Galilee Hitch-Hiker were collected and reprinted in The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster (1968).