Monthly Archives: April 2015

April 30, 2015

Political Art

By Tony Brown

Old poem.  Reposted tonight just because it felt right, in this moment, to think again about the limits of political art — dates back at least to 1999, 2000?  Appears here in the “Poems From The Slam Years” page. Has also appeared in various anthologies over the years, and various journals as well.

 

a print of “Guernica” hangs on the foyer wall
above the drink table
here are the famous horse and the upraised human face
they’re screaming as the hors d’oeuvres are passed

and on the facing wall
behind the buffet
hang two photographs
carefully chosen for tonight

in this one is a girl we have seen before
running and burning on a road in Vietnam years and years ago
back then she was trying to fly to safety
on the innocent strength rising along her fiery arms

in this one is a man we’ve also seen before
and despite his death in 1890 he also keeps trying
but he’s frozen awkward and insolent in his attempt
to rise from the snow at Wounded Knee

we are making small talk tonight
clicking our tongues at all these pictures
making crestfallen small talk
because we know we should

handing over money
to save Afghani statues from the guns of rapists
handing over fistfuls of green guilt
for the anesthetic of aesthetics

buying permission to posture unflinching
before those who have fallen
permission to shelter in these picturesque memorials
in the hope of receiving from them some kind of prophylactic grace

as we stare at the burning girl
as we sadly regret Wounded Knee and genocide
as we admire the abstraction of that burning Spanish town
we will click our tongues

while marking the skill of the artist at having those faces
seem so stark in their angled black and white
seem so shot through and through
with an undertone of subconscious red

it’s from this we’ve learned how to watch the news
the news that gives us each day our daily dread
a new crop of victims to be cropped and photoshopped
and we know just what to do when we see the faces

we observe
we regret
we remark
we move on

tonight there’s a gallery fundraiser
tomorrow there will be another
we’ll see the burning girl and the rising corpse again
and we’ll make another print of “Guernica”

why
do we need to keep making
all these prints
of “Guernica”?

someday we’ll see
that if we had been changed by all this art
at the first hint of genocide we would smash our cameras
hang our paintbrushes back on the wall

stick our checkbooks back in our pockets
lift the paintings from their frames
and carry them through the streets
to the places of power calling why

why

if the people inside our work could speak
they would tell us that if witness alone could change the world
the world would be changed by now
and we would have no need to keep learning

that this picture
of that girl
is not
beautiful

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April 30, 2015

Pursuit Of

By Tony Brown

The sun’s hot.  Too hot.
The water’s wet but it’s getting scarce
and the dirt’s becoming precious around our feet.
We look at our kids and say,
don’t get cocky about the pursuit of happiness
being easy.  Get a job and keep looking.
Pass a test and get a job and keep looking.  Kick a ball
and pass a test and keep looking.  Do it all —
go to school kick a ball pass a test get a job
kick a tire
and a man
and a woman
and a queer hide
and a brown hide
and don’t forget that Jesus, he kicked a lot of ass,
so I’ve heard, so we’ve all been told.
Keep looking, kick something that’s already down
and it’ll almost feel like you stumbled over happiness
in the dry weeds that are taking back our lawns.
Keep at it. It has to be here. Someone must have it and
it’s ours, damn it. We’ve got the paper
that says so. We’ve got the muscle. Dislocated
as the bones may be under our good skin,
we’ve still got the muscle and the guns. Rubble
piling up? That’s just good cover
for a sniper. Don’t get comfortable, kid.
You want it you have to hunt it.
You’re going to have to take aim
at the fucks who stole it.
Go get ’em, kid.
Go get ’em.

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April 29, 2015

Mixed

By Tony Brown

Sometimes, 
I am ashamed
of my face,
of what it does not look like.

I am ashamed of the way
light bends across it
and of how it glows less bronze
than it might have
if certain twists of gene and fate
had gone another way.

I had former family and former friends
who often said, “you’re lucky
you’re like this, like this, how
can you not like this?”  They speak

of privileges and passing and 
presentation — how easy, they say,
how much easier;
some say the presentation
is all that counts.

All the while I am beyond mere
sadness, beyond shame.
It’s not those things
I’m feeling.

I can’t tell you
what I’m feeling.  
I can’t say the words
because this nation
and this era 
disallow those words.  

I can’t say I am different
and feel different and 
am not allowed to say
how this is different;

instead I am said to be
and told to feel
lucky or false
or lucky and false.

What I truly want
is a face with which
to face the issues. To face
my issues. A face to match the face 
I daily face inside,
a face I can turn to
and ask about

why I feel so ashamed, and then
to ask directions toward
the country where I
can feel good.

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April 28, 2015

362 Miles

By Tony Brown

Woke up to sun
and no smoke.
Birds prattling on,
two daffodils finally up and shining
from our front walk mulch.
Nice place, this.  Nice place.

No smoke
for miles around.  No fire

not currently under control.
This is not to say that
there’s nothing smoldering here,
or that we’re not so far from Baltimore
that we know nothing of burning

or why things burn.  
It’s just that right now

this is a nice place,
and if we do smell smoke
it’s got to be from 362 miles away,
carried on a strong wind
from a place where

birds bloom
and flowers chirp, where everything’s

a little backwards. 
If we do smell smoke here —
do we smell smoke here?  
No, can’t be. We keep sniffing,

must just be
power of suggestion; well, maybe
a little something there, a little

something on that wind.

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April 27, 2015

Shadow

By Tony Brown

Beneath

this longing
for good old
familiar
Order

runs an ancient spring of

Shadow

that is now
seeping up
into our homes and
streets

Is becoming Flood
Is drowning Order

Someday it will become
sweet water again
in full sunlight
Will drench and nourish
something New

but only after this 
when it sinks back into 
its own heart-bed

Till then
expect this match of

Order against Shadow

to pull some down
wash much away
kill and kill and kill

as Order struggles
to hold
its crumbling ground
before it 
flails and falls away

at last

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April 26, 2015

Scrolling Down

By Tony Brown

Originally posted 6/27/2009.

A bird with three wings
has been found in Suffolk. 

Infants are born singing 
in Sao Paulo.  

A ghost, seen by thousands
who identify as that of a long dead rock star,
hovers just above the rush hour traffic
on the ring road around Atlanta.

In broad daylight, in Singapore,
a figure walks the streets laughing
and strumming a lute.

In Baltimore, green turns overnight 
to red.

The severed arm of a Jamaican wrestler
miraculously regenerates. 

A Swiss man lost for five days underwater
is found alive and breathing through a straw.

Slingshots have replaced cell phones
as the new status symbol for Japanese youth.

A Karachi flower market reopens for business with a new look
after a car previously pollinated with C-4 bears fruit.

In Kentucky, authorities report
a young boy has killed his entire family
because they were demons.

The death 
of a middle aged shepherd in Andorra
is linked to
a traditional curse of the Roma. 
Paris is now the world capital of sleeping sickness.
The news takes the world by surprise.

Connecting dots
on screens filled
with nothing but dots
becomes a worldwide craze
and competitive sport.

Winners will be chosen at a date to be announced.

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April 25, 2015

When They Did Not Break Us

By Tony Brown

Originally posted 7/29/2013; originally titled “When He Broke Us.”

when they first came 
they called us
both resource and nuisance
land and labor bank
in the way
ultimately good for nothing

said it was high time to break us

they set to it
our mystery belonging broke
our fluency in stone’s tongue broke
our river dreaming broke
our river beds opened
and drained themselves down
to now mute bones

we ended almost
when we couldn’t speak to each other

our children were taken from us
they returned much later looking more like Him
and had no tongue to use with us

who were we then without them?

we searched
scrapped and fought
found our old words
or made new ones
mined old life from new seams

now they’ve begun to crack
shame lines crazing faces

tried to wear our clothes
they fell off
tried to steal our names
we called them back to us

we put them back on
somewhat the worse for wear
but unbroken

when we spoke those names out loud
for the first time in a long time
in long songs full of drum and tears
the stones cried welcome back
and welcome home
and welcome once again

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April 25, 2015

Rubble

By Tony Brown

The dialogue between those two

was hard to describe
except to say
there was a lot of noise
that carried just a little signal
both intended and unintended
in a bed where each of them
waited cordially, aggressively,
for the next opportunity
to make some noise.
It reminded me of how 

I once was in a house

with walls made
of broken glass
set in rough concrete
so light came through
from outdoors.
From inside it looked
like this conversation sounded:
gems from a distance,
trash close up. I could not
leave that house soon enough,
though I longed and chafed
to be gone, just as

I could not get away

from that conversation.
Prisoner of the moment, I had to 
stay and hear it all, wondering
how it could go on and on
without one saying to the other,

let’s get out of here.  

Let’s not talk for a while. Let’s agree
to take this somewhere else.
Let’s agree to shut up and step outside
into unstained full sunlight
and see what it looks like from there.

By the way,

when I finally escaped
from that house, I found
that from the outside
it just looked like rubble.

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April 24, 2015

Profanity

By Tony Brown

in this place long ago
lived people who carved
nine thousand names
for their god
into this temple.
every seed they planted they saw
as a spark of green prayer
that would rise 
as it sprouted and grew,
perfuming the eyes of heaven
like sweet smoke.
they could hear and see
voices and vision in the earth itself
back then 

and now you’re trampling that,
tourist.

don’t claim it doesn’t matter
simply because those
who made this place
and worshipped here
are gone.
tell the truth about it:
if all were still thriving,
you still would not care because
you don’t care.

you don’t care about
what is sacred because
you think of
your god
like something from a comic book:
merely a possibility.  

you don’t care
because back home,
your god has no face
in your soil.

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April 24, 2015

This Container

By Tony Brown

This container
full of chunks of rust
which may have been
tools once, artifacts of 
energy and striving
that have become indistinct
remnants, memorials
to former utility:

today, open.  
Emptying.

Sun on its interior now;
warm, still, 
empty. Maybe comfort
will come with time

but for now,

empty.

 

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April 22, 2015

Advice: On Maintaining A Daily Writing Practice

By Tony Brown

Originally posted 4/17/2012.

your favorite writers

always tell you 
to write
to keep writing 

your favorite writers

are going to tell you to write all the time

because they claim they did and you

(following along in their wake

like sweet little sleep deprived interns

in the Hospital Of Broken Hearts)

ought to damn well do the same

 

your favorite writers

are going to tell you to write every day

tell you to churn thirty poems in thirty days

or a novel in a month

because that’s how it works

when the Fire is on them

 

that’s how they get to be favorite writers

the poor slobs

that’s how they get to be famous

one month of crazy at a time

maybe for a few months at a time

and voila

the New Hotness doth arrive

 

your favorite writers will tell you

all sorts of things

to disguise the fact that they don’t have a clue

as to how this works 

 

they agitate for cause and effect

because not to is to suggest

a case for werewolves vampires

ghosts and zombies

not as literary devices and archetypes

but as the horrid afterbirth 
of their own failed work

 

listen:

if your gut tells you the best thing for your writing

is to take a month off
square your taxes

screw your neighbor hugely for hours at a time

walk your mother in the park

watch a lot of television

and drink

 you owe it to yourself to try that

because when I look at my favorite writers

I see more of that 
than the cold and sober work they prescribe

for all the whippersnappers and upstarts

 

formulas are for chemists and physicists

writers suck at those things mostly

write when you want

how you want

where you want

 

and for God’s sake
take a shower
eat a sandwich 
and try to get some sleep

 

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April 22, 2015

Falling Off A Chair

By Tony Brown

I was born
sitting at a table
I knew was not
my true place.

I learned to speak, then to
speak poems,
and the first time
I made a promise
to use all that
on behalf of One True Voice
I felt myself ascending
to the moment of balance
when you tip a chair back 
on two legs and it doesn’t quite
fall but you’re hanging there
waiting.  The first time 
I was able to deliver 
upon such a promise,
I felt myself falling

and though I knew
the end would cause pain
and blood would be shed
it was alright
because I also knew
it would not kill me
and after that I would never
have to sit at that table again.

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April 22, 2015

Machismo

By Tony Brown

Whenever that type of wrong
can happen, it seems to happen.
Bombs or words or bodily
weaponry, whatever’s at hand

gets used when molecular,
falsified, ingrained pride
surges up and kills
any care within. Then

blooms a corpse-floral
fever, more often than 
occasionally, more obviously
than rarely, more normal

than exotic. It stinks
a cancered manhood song. It stinks
a dangled sadness and falling rage
that too often is used and then given

a pass to unpunished commonplace.
To draw it down is a job
and a calling.  To draw it down
is to slice it free of its tethered feeds

and let it sink wildly, flailing its power
at first, then slipping into something 
more feeble, then becoming still.
It is unknown yet what comes after that.

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April 22, 2015

After Fire, Flood, And Love

By Tony Brown

Originally posted 3/10/2012.

After
fire there’s ash. Warmth
underneath, pale wisp-paper
above, easily dispersed, easily blown around.

After
flood comes muck.  Damp
goes all the way through.
Deep and sucking, holds fast.

After
love — what?   
What should we call that hot bog
that draws us down and won’t let us go?

After
love — let’s not call it.
Let’s not even name it.  Let’s say:
first fire and flood, then ash and mud;

then, after love, nothing.
Nothing comes after love.

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April 21, 2015

Burying The Needle In Massachusetts

By Tony Brown

Originally posted 2/21/2009.

twenty five, coked out, driving away from my life
with my skewed eyes stuck on the needle
buried at 120 on state road 140  — the snakepath
from the cape to the stubby hills north of Worcester

south of the basalt shadows of New Hampshire
that are full of whatever Lovecraft adored
I strand the Firebird on a leafmold bank
and get out

there’s a puritan darkness under the trees
that still hasn’t lifted
the inbred imp in charge of hating difference
still sits on the bones of the old farm walls

once you get past the liberal mask
and the self-congratulation inside 128
where the Cabots and the Lodges used to play at benevolence
this state’s as redneck as any media slander against the South

there’s a quote from 2 Jeremiah
hanging outside the house across from where I’ve landed
“…your own sword hath devoured your prophets,
like a destroying lion”

some lay ministry of warning
carved with a router into brown stained wood
just like all the
bed and breakfast signs around here

this state looks pretty as hell
in October from inside a minivan
or even from inside a muscle car
at 120 miles an hour

people come and gawk from buses
stay over, buy trinkets and maple sap
go back home to sigh and say
“we love New England in the fall”

but now it’s high summer
and all those not-yet-red leaves
are barely rustling under the moonless sky
shading God and his devil and ancient blood in the soil

where the colonists beheaded algonquin children
brown people still keep to themselves in fear
and when a boy grows up looking like he wants to break away
or maybe wants to deny how good and right the kingdom is

when he gets to a certain age they start to whisper
he’s gonna end up bad
he’s not gonna make it
often he falls from the prophecies

sometimes he gets older
and can’t escape the feeling that he’s lived too long
goes looking for the sword in the trees
offers himself to lions long after he should have settled down

calling out I’m your boy, simba
your snowfaced speeding bullet
stumbling into your face full of misery
give me your sharp tooth and set me free

not too far from where I’ve stalled
is redemption rock
the natives once gave a hostage back there
and got themselves killed for their trouble

who am I tonight?
hostage or hostage taker?
colonist or colonized?
prophecy or prophet?

I bleed at the very thought of me
I bet Lovecraft is thinking
of changing his name from beyond the grave
because I love him

I’m on the side of the road
the car’s idling rough
I kneel in the gravel on the pavement’s fringe
listen as hard as I can for the lion’s roar

bury a needle deep in these woods
and the local ghosts will use it to sew your shroud
you’ll join them in being
just another sword to wave at unbelievers

now I don’t wanna wreck this car
but if there was any light out here tonight
maybe I’d take the snakepath of least resistance
and plant it on a tree

but turning my head back toward where I started
reminds me that every vehicle has a steering wheel
the way out might be in no place you ever imagined
and what the hell — I’ve got a fast car

so I get back in and turn around
thought I saw a sign somewhere back there
for a highway going somewhere not here
somewhere not in massachusetts

I’m gonna bury that needle once again
send horror ravening back into its den
let the rpm scream and turn the high beams on
drive as fast as I can toward bright lights big city anywhere but here

I’ll be up for a while yet and
there’s always two directions
to any road so let’s pick one and ride
let’s see what this baby can do

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