Author Archives: Tony Brown

About Tony Brown

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A poet with a history in slam, lots of publications; my personal poetry and a little bit of daily life and opinions. Read the page called "About..." for the details.

Iron Tang

New poem.

Cooks a hearty breakfast with privilege for fuel. Finds it
smoky and filling with a subtle iron tang under the cheesy
notes of the primary flavors.

Showers then for work under hot, hot water thanks to 
privilege burning in the basement furnace.  Then, warm clothes
to wear, thick carpets underfoot, fine shoes and doors

that open both ways, a solid car,
a road, a job, a team of coworkers, a good dinner out and
a drink later with that iron tang on the tongue

present the whole time, insistence
upon reminder upon demand.
It once was interesting, now is at once maddening

and integral. Comes up empty trying to name it. Thinks,
it’s not the privilege. It’s not. It’s not. Turns on the television,
then turns it off at the sight of streets of blood. Promises

to puzzle it out
tomorrow
on a full stomach.

 


Wake Up (Boss)

New poem. 

Someone near me says,
I did that like a boss.

I say to him, wake up. Don’t say that —
who wants to be the boss? He says,

fool, I do. I say, wake up. Who is our secret

enemy? Who is our tight lipped
antagonist? Who is our uneasy 
must-go-to? Who sits on the shoulder
of the road counting our steps
as we slog our heavy loads unwillingly
from one sad place to another?

He says, but not all bosses are bad. I say, yes,
not all bosses are bad but there’s a bad creature
alive in the center of that word.  
It likes the taste of obedience. It says,
please don’t be inconvenient. It says,
stay on the sidewalk with your heavy load,
stay out of the big wide road with your freedoms
and you will be allowed to exercise them
as much as you like. It was the creature
that lives in the center of the word “boss” 
who coined the phrases 
go along to get along,
not all men, and
all lives matter.

He turns his back on me
while shaking his head
and I say to myself,

wake up, fool,
talking like a boss to him — 
clearly you have some boss venom
in you and do you want the poison
of feeling and doing anything
like a boss? Wake up, I tell myself,
and say it: 

no, boss. No.
I’m shutting up. 
I’m sitting down,
I prefer not to.
I prefer not to.


Note to all subscribers

I’m sorry for the low number of posts lately.  I’ve been involved in the demonstrations and other work being done around the current situation in the US.  It has taken up a lot of time, my energy, and now my health to some extent.  I’ll be fine, but I will likely be somewhat detached from my work here for a bit.

Please, please, PLEASE look up some older poems here if you could.  I write them for more than the moment, y’know.

Thanks.

Tony


The Feast

Originally posted 7/27/2013.

For each guest,
a gift of honey in a small jar.  

Broad leaves for plates, laden
with sticky-starchy rice, a bed for 

cloud-white fish, steamed
and spiced. Tumblers

of cool juices, a good wine
of humble provenance

in a thick-walled carafe.
Unfamiliar fruits

placed within reach
to be eaten at leisure.  

Then I woke. This all became
a fading dream.

Ten minutes later, cannot recall
the perfect conversation

that accompanied the feast, do not know
the name of One who sat across from me

and made me feel small and
full of future as if I were a seed.

I remember no words, but dimly recall
the taste of that fruit,

how the honey in glass
glowed in the sunset, 

how much I wanted
to call that place home.

 


Trajectory

Originally posted on 7/28/2013.

You see yourself
as a mere trajectory, a clear arc

from yesterday to now, a line in mid-air
revealing origin, predicting destination.

What about now? Are the lines
around your mouth right now just a residue?

Face yourself for once. That arc behind you
is smoke. Are you really still on fire?


Song Of Shootings

Originally posted 1/30/2004; revised, 6/9/2014.
Originally titled “Songs Against Police Shootings.”

Once again, a brown teenage boy
crumples leaking
onto the floor of a stairwell.

Once again, a cop states
that he thought he saw
a gun.

Do you remember them? Do you remember
her, lying in the street
with her eggshell nails and skinny legs?

Remember him,
whose house smelled of wine
and buzzed like a glove full of bees?

When they banged down his door 
they thought a host of tiny troubles 
might fly out of its ramshackle fingers

so they shot him down as he stumbled out,
shot him down as if he were
a queen, a danger queen.

Remember 
all the dead salty-throated 
boys and girls

who were in the wrong places
at the wrong time — the places where
mothers’ magic
stops working?

Here you are again,
too familiar with this, too familiar
to second guess — yet you do, saying

the roof
was just a short cut
to the next building,

it was never meant to be
his final destination;
how does this happen?

You know how it happens.
You know that
is the wrong question.

You know he should have been able
to go anywhere
without this happening.

You tell this
to anyone who will listen, although
you cannot say any 
of their names aloud.

You try to remember them all —
so many names in one story.
You tremble 
as you count them.

They are safe and sleeping,
and you will not be the one
to wake them from sleep; instead

you choose to stand watch,
to sound the alarm,
to fight the urge for going — 

the urge to turn away, to be safe,
to second guess, to hide,
to ignore, to pretend.


You (Matchbook)

New poem.

You
chose the colors of the flag
and the money.

You
bought whatever
you couldn’t steal.

You
did dirt, then
made doing dirt the default.

You
won and won 
and won. 

You
reached across the table
to take us as forfeit

thinking
we had nothing left
but wasted lives to bet

because everything else
we’d ever had
was going up in smoke.

You
were close to right,
except 

you
forgot about
this matchbook.


Perfect Tool

New poem.

Something’s stirring, straining,
coming up from underneath
where it’s been held.

You claim
you want to help free it but
first you have to consider
and then choose
the perfect tool for the job.

Is it the screwdriver? The hammer?
The blowtorch?  Is there really something to be said for simply
blowing it up and starting over? What loosens best
that which has been bound so tightly for so long
the whole house groans when it twitches? It’s all
so complicated,

or so you say.


Ukulele Fight Song

Originally posted 9/18/2012.

we are waiting for a table
in this restaurant
watching an ant
on the wall

watching an ant
watching an ant
watching an ant
on the wall

waiting for the ant
to walk the whole wall
betting on the ant
who is walking the wall

if the ant walks the whole wall before we are called
we will take that ant to our table
we will take that ant to the table
we swear we will take that ant to the table

for how much could an ant possibly eat
a crumb or two maybe that falls from our plates
a crumb or two maybe
a crumb

how perfectly privileged we are
that we get a table to wait for
in this town where people might not have a table
a table to be filled with food

so let’s feed the ant
who is walking the wall
walking the whole length of the long wall 
how much could one ant eat

that ant is inspiring
I’m going to buy a ukulele
and once I know how to play

or maybe a little before that

I will write a song with a ukulele
sing it at an open mike
singsong a song for the struggle of ants
fight hunger with a ukulele

that ant is going to owe us
for the crumbs we offer
for the ukulele fight song
for not crushing her this time

if she is not grateful enough
you know she can forget the crumbs
damned if we write another song about her

you watch how swiftly the thumb will come down


What Democracy Looks Like

New poem.

there are people in the streets.
some are dead. some are deadly.
some are on their feet for the first time,
awakening in a time of mirror shards
to revolution in a time of plastic, 
a war in the time of ukulele music — 

this is what democracy looks like.

there are people lighting candles.
there are people 
lighting candles the size of buildings
and cars. there are people holding circles
and vigils and ciphers, people running

from murk toward dawn then turning back
to face the murk and stand and never crack —

this is what democracy looks like.

there are people rising and people falling
and some of the people rising don’t yet know
they rise, just as some of those falling
won’t know it till they hit the killing floor.
some who rise will rise from sight. some who fall
will shatter to dust and sift away on the wind — 

this is what democracy looks like.

there are people voicing what was once voiceless,
building safety for those once unsafe, draping justice
like a bulletproof cloak on the shoulders of those
who have been judged unjustly
and serving justice to those unjust who have never tasted it,
making it new and now and near — 

this is what democracy looks like.

there are people who say it is best to make it plain:
hands up, don’t shoot. black lives matter.
someone stands with a megaphone in a circle of fire,
asks: what do we do now? and the circle says,
we march. we go. we do what needs doing
and when that’s done, we do more — 

this is what democracy looks like.


Gentrification

Originally posted 7/12/2010.  Original title, “Gentrifying Worcester.”

Where I live
they’re opening cute bars for the cute,
sprucing up streets ahead of the cute,
renaming old squares for the cute.

This city was never built for cute.
We’re the city that either
swallowed cute whole or spit it out.
Now our throats 

are so clogged with glitter
we can’t breathe,
yet we squabble over 
how to swallow even more.  

Downtown frets 
over how to paint itself more cute
while up here on the hills 
we’re hoping cute washes off

before we can’t recognize ourselves
in what’s left of our sturdy old mirrors — 
hell, this city is my sturdy old mirror.
There I am in its empty red-brick

monuments to old machines, 
its neighborhood dives,
its warehouse squats, its 
half-eaten streets, its good dirty diners.

This was the town where we used to depend
on the knowledge that cute always fades
like a Saturday night drunk
propped in the corner of a diner booth;

it kept us from envying cute too much.
We’ve forgotten that too often, when cute sobers up
it either runs out on the check or leaves a bad tip
and anyone left has to figure out how to get by.

Underneath this city is a river
no one alive has ever seen. Downtown
they’re talking about cutting it open 
and making it cute. Cut it open,

I say. Cut it open —
see what’s collected in the dark,
but don’t count on finding cute down there.
Don’t count on finding water flowing there;

we’ve sweated, bled and cried here for years.
All of that has to have gone somewhere;
if you listen, you can hear it still bubbling
and it doesn’t sound cute to me.


Left Left Right

Originally posted 3/1/2010.

Left at the top of the stairs.
Another left, then a right.
Here’s the blue room I lived in for years,
the room I drywalled and painted for myself
with my father’s help.
It’s still small.
It’s still blue.
I chose the color 
and the embarrassing blue shag carpet.
I helped to lay the oak floors that underlie that —
beautiful wood I covered with blue shag carpet.
Hours fitting new grooves to the just laid tongues,

nailing through the new tongues at the right angle.
I used to smoke dope out the window
with a pipe I made from a radiator valve
listening to my first FM radio,
freeform programming, late 60s,
Mickey and Sylvia after Rashaan Roland Kirk.
I stopped thinking the world was rigid and orderly.
No one’s vacuumed since I left.
I found a cannabis seed in the blue shag carpet.
One time I dropped acid here 
and decided to stare at myself in the mirror 
for too long. I took a piece of notebook paper
and wrote a whole story 
that sounded pretty much like this one.
If I lived here now 
I’d tear up this rug
and see how the oak planks have held up
and if it they were still good 
I’d stain them and polish them
and that would be the floor.
I’d paint the walls a different blue
and when I was done I’d play the radio 
and smoke a big joint
in plain view of the windows
while thinking about Rashaan Roland Kirk
who owned the blues and one working arm and no sight,
I’d follow up by singing
“Love Will Make You Fail In School”
like I haven’t in years.
It’s still true, I can vouch for that;
I wrote about it once,
long ago, with a blue pen
on a piece of blue lined notebook paper
while the carpet wiggled and writhed.
My eyes wouldn’t stay in my head.
They might wander off again right now, my eyes might.
Take a left, left.  Take a right, right.
I could be blind on a cold oak floor
if it meant I could feel free again.


The History Of History

Originally posted 11/4/2010.

They’re coming for us. 

Again, the sound of death-bees in the air. 

Again, batons and the hiss of tear gas. 

Right back
to the bright red world of vigilance
we should have been shed of
dozens of, hundreds of,
thousands of years ago.

Hunters are coming
with traps and guns and laws. 
Our ears are to the ground,
listening for the tumbling of their wheels.
There be giants coming for us — 
god-henchmen, blue hungry curs;
every one wolf-eyed,
expert and patient.
They’re coming in new hides,
new weapons, new uniforms,
but they have the same old saber teeth,
they’re the same old giant bears
who thought we were made
for their survival needs, they think
we’re the same old prey that got away,
and they’re thinking, “Not this time.”

We thought to outrun the past,
but it got faster.
We’ve got to get smart
the way we got smart 
the last time this happened. 
We learned fire and song then,
learned to shout directions to each other
on the run,
learned when to turn
and make a stand.

Time to pick our hands up
off the hoods of our cars.

Time to talk to the neighbors,
talk to each other,
talk ourselves to the battle.

They’re coming,
but it’s nothing new
and nothing we haven’t defeated
a thousand times
a thousand times.
Inside every last soft one of us
is still the Hard One
who long ago
got up off all fours,
looked the Hunters
in the eyes and made
the first ever Political Statement:

“No.
Not this time.”


New demo track available on Soundcloud

Carve on Soundcloud

Above, you’ll find a link to a demo recording of my poem “Carve” — something I laid down tonight as a demo for the Duende Project.  If you like it, it’s available as a free download.  Thanks!

T


How The West Was Won

Originally posted on 3/3/2010.  My 50th birthday, by the way.

 

Watching “The Real Old West” on
the History Channel:
blued barrels
hanging off leather belts
as always; but it seems
that the rotgut was mixed with fruit juice,
if this is to be believed
over the mythology 
of bad gin and whiskey
shot from dirty glasses,

burning neat all the way down.

I trust this.
It’s more like

who we are,

telling ourselves
we’re tough old cowboys
but too scared of pain
to dare to toss
our poisons back
straight,
no chaser.