Welcome to
our homeland
where all roads
lead to shops
that sell tinctures
of mist and mistake
in flint glass bottles,
formulas made
to be sipped
from silver spoons
long tarnished
with foreboding;
where every house
has a cute front door,
sweet curb appeal,
and a back door
to an alley,
a one way street,
or a dead end; that door
is the only exit
once you’re inside;
to be certain of which
you are stepping onto,
read the signs —
how foot-beaten
does the pavement
appear to be,
how far does it extend
among these close built,
dim windowed fortresses;
you’ll have to
walk it regardless
but good to know,
good to be forewarned; welcome
to our country
full of schooling
for jobs and careers,
shootings and padlocks,
schooling
for debts and
mad sorcery
over the checkbook
once a month,
schooling for
holding patterns,
crossed fingers,
sweaty sheets,
the fevered terror
of the wolf at the door,
the hijab in the coffeehouse,
the ghost bonfires
of noose and cross
still throwing heat; welcome
to the place where,
if you have to go there,
you go there —
they want you
to call it home
whether or not they
take you in; stay —
you can always
be decorative
somewhere
at the right time of
the year.
Author Archives: Tony Brown
About Tony Brown
Brochure
What A Squirrel Means
Originally posted 11/29/2010 as a revision to a poem from 2006.
A cat has caught a squirrel,
left it wounded and choking
on the neighbor’s lawn,
and I have come outside
to stop the noise.
I chase the cat away:
he does not go far, watches
as I bend over the small body
then step back; the squirrel rises,
tries to climb the big maple three times,
getting no farther up than four or five feet
before a clumsy tumble
into squirming among the exposed roots —
panting, squeaking softly
like a balloon
losing air.
This ends at once;
I am glad my knife is sharp.
The cat is still watching,
waiting to attend to this kill
that once was his alone
and now must be shared;
back inside I wash the blade in the sink
for ten minutes under
the hottest water I can stand,
then do the same
with my hands
that believe they have just
done the right thing
yet just as rightly
cannot stop shaking.
When We Were In The Cult
Originally posted 6/23/2010.
When we were in the cult
we didn’t get much sleep.
It was said we didn’t need it
so we learned how not to need it.
When we were in the cult
words had different meanings
that seemed a little off or wrong
but we understood them soon enough.
When we were in the cult
we slept with everyone inside
and made a lot of noise about
how outside ought to do the same.
When we were in the cult
everything that went wrong
was caused by something we’d done.
There were no accidents or errors.
When we were in the cult
we didn’t call it cult. We called it
“being there.” We slept when we could.
We worked a lot. We fucked a little.
We tried not to mess it up
by thinking
or saying or doing
things we shouldn’t.
When we were
in the cult,
it wasn’t hard
to be in the cult
as long as we didn’t think
we were in one at all.
As long as you keep saying it,
it isn’t bad at all.
Door
any open door
that can be closed and locked is
a good advisor
in the moment when
it snugs into its frame
I learn what I need
about safety and peace
achieved through insulation
from the other side
(no matter where I
make my stand I stand behind
or before a door)
Pressing Forward
Where I am
is standing still,
facing forward.
A seeming windowpane
separates me from
the next place I should be:
I poke it with a single finger
then press on it with first one
and then both hands.
It bends, does not break,
warps and distorts but
will not allow me
entrance
but I keep pushing…
it’s sad, or it feels
sad. It’s not sad
in fact, it is just a matter of
fact that
it takes a long time
for such a barrier to yield
and one must push
and push and sometimes
kick
to break it. To break it
and step through
to the new life that I think
will seem not much different
at first — it looks much the same
over there, but that light…
imagine
how my familiar things
may look in that light:
some dingy,
some more lovely, some
likely revealed as utterly
not what they once seemed.
For all that may be possible
over there
I keep pressing, poking,
gently, strongly; I keep
pressing forward.
Ragged Lamb
Originally posted 4/23/2011.
Ragged lamb,
high rock.
False thunder —
perhaps guns far off, perhaps
a tin roof falling in close by,
somewhere I can’t see.
That poor lamb,
matted and filthy, bleating
in fear and pain, scared perhaps
by thunder in a blue sky.
I scramble
to catch her before she falls off the edge
into the ravine below, but I fail
and she falls — but doesn’t.
Instead she hovers in mid-tumble
as if held up on a thermal,
as if she is no lamb
but a falcon.
She is in fact now a falcon,
her claws extended toward me
as if to keep me
from attempting the rescue
that’s no longer needed.
To hell with finding music to speak of this;
to hell with perfect rhyme
and set meter in the telling.
I’m no singer of mystery.
That ragged lamb
fell, did not die,
became a falcon
threatening to tear me up.
There is thunder
that is not thunder,
a miracle that feels foul to me,
feels unbelievable — but damn,
it was a real lamb,
is a real falcon,
a real cliff,
a moment
that feels real
here on the edge
as I wonder
which article of faith
in my narrow world
I should risk losing next.
Love Poem For A Wound
It appears
I have been shot again:
silently as always,
from afar as always,
with an ancient weapon
as always.
When an arrow enters
it breaks a path for blood
and for pain
but also for perfume
I forget I have within me
whenever I am between
such wounds.
I settle with a shiver
to my knees — calmer
than last time it happened
by a small degree,
gladder than last time
by far;
savoring gusts of
lemon and honey,
cinnamon and clove,
I close my eyes
to await the arrival
of The Archer
who soon will come to see
what has been taken this time.
Soon enough the work will follow:
the work of kissing down this pain,
binding this wound, helping me
to my feet, raising me to full
height, pushing me to walk on changed
and no longer alone, together
breathing night-garden air.
Hagiography
Originally posted 11/12/2011.
Call upon any old saints, any old books;
you’ll find them retired, find them out of print.
Instead, call upon St. Teflon, patron saint of bullet dodgers;
St. Tango, source of comfort against blind divergent storms;
St. Bullwhip, defender against the wealthy;
St. Lifter, overseer of the doomed in all cases. Seek the favor of
St. Angelcake, who strokes the heads of the raped;
St. Watchfob, who picks fruit and cleans the poisons from the flesh;
St. Linger, warrior with no hard weapons;
St. Rollie Of The Bones, bringer of square deals and luck.
Call for inspiration from The Blessed Version,
The Sherman On The Mount, The Irascible Conception;
proclaim them from a new Bible written by scribes drunk
on the manic milk of modern circumstance. Raise a banner for
St. Rattler of the found quarter, pray to
St. Lobster of the century reboot, celebrate
St. Jack at the feast of unicorn meat, open your heart to
St. Liminal of body cameras fashioned
from broken teeth and old lies.
Open the long shot gospel and say it, sing it,
give it all your voice: our saviors appear
on no altars, grace no chapel marquees —
hang on a while longer
to see if a saint may rise
to assuage this sharp bone, this death rattle moment,
in time to save us all.
Sit Anywhere
In your living room
is a star-covered
couch cushion
that is currently serving
as throne for
your rangy, yellow-eyed cat
who will not stir from it,
no matter
how much
you playfully threaten
to sit upon her;
you are hovering
above her
and she stares up
into your face
with a deep-gene memory
of having been
worshipped in Egypt
showing through
her jaundiced disdain.
How is it that you
are not ashamed
at having the nerve
to offer such disrespect
to another being —
how do you explain
the casual attitude
that suggests
that one may sit
on any thing or being
one is big enough
to commandeer —
how do you explain
your disregard,
your protestations
that it’s all in fun,
that it’s only for play,
that you would
never hurt her —
how do you explain away
this moment that is
a microcosm of
the entire span
of history
of the modern world?
In Rain-Light Morning
In rain-light morning,
sitting with all that’s inside me
before day’s rush-time steals away
all my intentions, I come to conclusions
and thus also to beginnings.
Some conclusions are best seen
as escapes from
a grudging obligation to care
about what has passed,
about closing books upon
now-spoiled, once well-ripened
moments;
it dawns upon me also
that beginnings
are often about noticing
those small bumps,
swellings on blooms
on fruit trees, that promise
eventual nourishment
if cared for well enough;
sitting now in rain-light morning,
in fall, long before such beginnings
become obvious again, in a season
of fallen leaf and fruit and emptied
gardens now littered with remains
of past harvest and growth;
sitting here knowing
this moment of clarity will pass
and never ripen, but also knowing
that another will come and pass again;
knowing that one day
I shall be able to conclude
that in each conclusion
is the next beginning,
that ripeness is always at hand,
is in my eyes, is always there
in my choosing.
Maestro, Virtuoso, Aficionado
Originally posted 10-26-2011.
Maestro, play on
In the hands of a virtuoso
even a decayed instrument,
ignored for years, attic-bound,
can make a music strong enough
to bend walls.
Maestro, my maestro, play on
I don’t claim the title for myself
but my age being its own reward
and punishment at once,
I live toward the words — maestro, virtuoso —
as if they were mine to use.
Virtuoso, I am aficionado
Maestro, I am waiting
What do I call myself now
when, with my instrument
all but played out,
I choose to seek clarity
by using a single string?
Ossessionato
I am obsessed with the hunt
Maestro
I am forsaken
I’ve been told
that nothing made on the single string
is performable,
but here I find myself committed to the single string,
facing an audience
who expects performance.
Maestro, I am the impression of you only
Aficionado
Ossessionato
In command of the single note.
In command of the silence around it.
Can one perform silence?
On stage, now, I do nothing,
yet the audience
expects something;
but what could possibly replace
the joy of doing
this, just this, only this, only
this one pure thing?
Maestro, I am aficionado
But I am no virtuoso
and I cannot stop this
though I would not stop this
even if I could
The Office
Ceramic plaque
hung with care
upon a cubicle wall —
sun and moon kissing.
Alongside the monitor
photos of a blonde boy
and two younger blonde girls
in baseball uniforms, all
squint-grinning
into the camera.
A sign on the wall
next to the sun and moon
says,
“Livin’ The Dream.”
It’s
almost as if
someone
lives here.
Righteous Shoot (Talking To Blue)
Tell me if I have this right —
if I stand before you and
you choose me as your enemy
it is a righteous choice;
if your weapon is drawn,
it is righteously drawn;
if your weapon speaks,
it is righteous speech;
if I fall after it has spoken,
it is a righteous fall.
Your enemy
may not have been
properly identified for you,
may not be clear to you,
but you hunt anyway,
armed and wary,
assuming that
bullets, once fired,
will exact perfect justice
by way of having come from
an unerring (by definition) gun.
Do I misspeak, am I
getting all this?
Am I even allowed
to speak about this?
It’s getting hard
to understand
what is allowed, what is
a right, who has what rights,
what descends from
such righteousness,
how far down
one may descend.
Supremacies
1.
Which supremacies
should we choose
to honor?
2.
Water covers earth,
earth covers my arm.
My arm covers a blindness.
A beat covers silence
and my own overall supremacy
has it all over English, which of course
is the language of the supremacy
that is most often noticed.
3.
It is possible that silence
has beaten beats.
Is it possible?
If so, what
will become
of dancing?
4.
If I cut my arm,
if I self-harm,
what supremacy do I honor
when I spill, for a change, my own blood?
5.
Water is to earth
as blindness is
to English
as I am to the heart of the matter
as the heart is
to the remainder, the leftover;
all of it under the rule of the arm,
reaching without being
certain of its grasp.
6.
At night when we are all supposed
to be at rest,
we are troubled by the sound of many wings,
wings of moths, bats, strange birds;
the supremacy here
is that of darkness.
7.
Welcome to a way of life
that’s become as greasy with mistakes and shoddy care
as a poorly washed cup in a sink;
greasy as news photos of con artists
telling lies with wide eyes to children
to keep them quiet and get them to sleep.
Welcome to a way of life
that could leave a slick
on the cleanest water;
a way of life that could make a street cat
lose its way in an alley where it had lived
its whole ragged time.
8.
What supremacies are honored
by the simple fact of you being allowed
to be whatever you want
no matter how often you try
to be something
you are not?
What supremacies does your existence
reinforce? What are you allowed
to be supreme over?
What does it say about us all
that such allowances have been made
for you?
9.
There is a spell that need not be spoken,
about which nothing need be said;
it is by its nature
made to be left unspoken:
one thing
to rule them all
one thing
to find them
one thing
to bring them all
in whiteness
shall we bind them
10.
We sink into the topsoil
as all things do and lie there
somewhat dreaming
of what supremacies
we may honor when we rise
again — what spells,
what blood we should spill
in ritual; dreaming of what language
we should chant, on whose arm
we should lean, in what blindness
we should willingly stand
when tomorrow comes for us at last.
Why You Should Have A Clock Radio
Originally posted 8-29-2012.
If you have a clock radio
next to your bed
and you happen to wake tomorrow
to a violin and a steady drum,
do not rise and step away
from the music
into the day too quickly,
thus occupying yourself
with the business of living
instead of the joy of it,
for how often does it happen
that you wake up early for work
with a sweet fiddle in your ear
and a lover next to you? In fact,
don’t the soft drum
and the sidling of
that wicked, wicked bow
suggest something other than
getting up for work
as the only right way
to start the day?
Dark Matter 