Category Archives: poetry

July 17, 2016

The Shell Game

On the day I will likely die
I will not likely be heroic,
falling for a cause in a leaden rain,
protecting others with torn flesh.

It’s not at all clear today
how I’ll die on that day, of course,
but it likely won’t happen during
some last stand for my beliefs,
some war for my soul,
some battle I choose
or one that comes to me
against my will
only to be grimly faced
by me as warrior,
me as fighter,
me as memorial in waiting.

I will likely not be mourned
by those who never knew me
but who may choose to honor me
based solely on what symbolic message
my death will send. I will likely not
show up on an historic death list
afterward, commemorated yearly
by ceremonies, bowed heads
in a classroom or office,
a pretty average song
written by a pretty average songwriter
played on a pretty average radio station.

No.

When I go, I’ll likely be bedridden,
poor in dollars and cents and sense,
shitting and pissing myself,
wispy under stiff yellowed sheets
in a stiff, puke-green room;

or just as likely
I’ll be in whatever passes for my own home
doing all those same things unattended;

or just as likely
I’ll pass in a crap car wrecked in some crap fashion
by my own mistake or deliberate hand.

When it’s done they’ll truck me off
from wherever I happen to fall
as hazardous waste to be handled
with due care and precaution
until I’m disposed of.

Fine, then. Anyway it happens,
it will be fine.

It’s always a shell game at closing time;
you end up under some shifting cover
while someone tries to call out
the one that holds you,
seeking a win from your presence
or your absence.
However that plays out on that day

what I was will be gone
in any one of a number
of likely or unlikely ways
that won’t matter to me.
I would like it to matter to someone.
I do what I can to make that so
but when that final shell
is at last raised,
what’s underneath
won’t be up to me.

1 Comment | tags: death, meditations, poems, poetry | posted in poetry

July 16, 2016

Listening To “Deportee” Being Sung At A Rally

By Tony Brown

How deftly she moved
through the changes — her fingers
on the strings, her face
in moving shadow — her voice
a deep incantation, first
sweet as cool dawn,
shifting toward the sound
of a stream in full flood still
just within its banks, ending in a spill
of soft clarity —

all this before
the police dragged her
from the sidewalk
and hurled her brick-hard into
the side of the cruiser, calling her
officiously a Commie, a terrorist,
a mistake, an insult — building
that dam against all she’d
set to flowing
just seconds before —

one of the cops
snatched her guitar
(almost gently)
from her hands as they did this
as if he believed that it
could not be blamed
for what was happening here
and did not deserve the treatment
they were meting out —

handed it
(to the surprise of all)
to another in the crowd —

as the police
took her away
another set of fingers
began to work
those bereft strings
and other voices took up
that same song

Link to a video of Judy Collins’ version of this song here.

1 Comment | tags: music, poems, poetry, political poems | posted in poetry

July 15, 2016

A Friendly Reminder From The Protest

By Tony Brown

Sign a check
you never expect
to be cashed;
take a stand
somewhere your face
can’t be seen, someplace
safe, warm,
and dark; after all,
you’re nothing like the ones
on the front line.
They’d rather be safe too,
and feeling the same,
but safety’s not for everyone,
even if it should be.

If you
are one of those
inclined to hide,
you should hide,
even if it’s
behind them; go ahead,
hide
behind them, but
not so close
to their backs
that they
have to worry
about you;
they wouldn’t want
to mistake you
for what’s in front of them,
and you wouldn’t want that either.

They got this
without you,

without
you back there
safe and sound
and
breathing down
their necks.

Leave a comment | tags: meditations, poems, poetry, political poems | posted in poetry

July 15, 2016

USA, July 2016

By Tony Brown

It’s still early.

Still only beginning to be
unpleasantly hot here.

Still looks to be a bad one for the garden
and the people.

I have a hose with a problem
called a drought.
I have a political lawn sign
with a problem called
a small matter of
a war in the streets.

I had a little love for many.
I have turned that into
a lot of love for a few
and the rest can shrivel
or burn or both. I don’t have
time for them — there’s
a small matter of a war and
also a drought.

I had a bet down on getting out of here
before it got too hot
but I’m a loser and a sore one
at that

so now I have a problem
with a drought and a
problem with a war
and a political sign and a hose
won’t do me much good — can’t
fly out of here on a sign,
can’t keep a battle off my lawn
with a hose, not anymore.

And it’s still early,
or at least it’s still early in this dry heat
of a summer, early in the skirmishes,
early in this last late show about
problems with drought
and war and lost wagers
that it wouldn’t come to this,

and not a drop of cooling in sight.

9 Comments | tags: meditations, poems, poetry, political poems | posted in poetry

July 15, 2016

Tough Going

By Tony Brown

Originally posted 11/4/2013.

To wake before dawn
is to wrestle
a fat, angry angel
every morning, one
who would prefer
I stay asleep indefinitely.

We struggle until I put that angel
into brief submission, then go about
this life where the easy stuff
takes forever to do
and the impossible presents itself
as regularly as church.

Weight and difficulty
are what I know best.
Some of us, it seems,
are born to be
ground underfoot,
born to wear out.

I trust the universe
to get it right,

and when the last of me crumbles,

my remains will serve some purpose,
I’m certain, for that fat and angry angel
who will crush me
and then lift me
tenderly
from where I’ve mingled with dust.

1 Comment | tags: meditations, poems, poetry, revisions | posted in poetry

July 14, 2016

Storm Ahead

By Tony Brown

Doomsday tongues
in broken faces
sing their longing for rain
in this rainless season.

No words or songs alone
can cool this heat, but
songs come anyway.

In the near distance,
darkness and silence.

Beyond that?

2 Comments | tags: meditations, poems, poetry, political poems | posted in poetry

July 11, 2016

Cold Call

By Tony Brown

All I ask
is for them to be happy
to hear my voice
when I call, even if

I can do
nothing for them
at that moment.
To have my

familiar
but somewhat
unexpected words
charm them,

curl up and nest
in their ears
for a moment
or more. But

it’s a cold call more often
than not now,
a disinvitation by tone
and rushed goodbye.

I am certainly not asking
to be the sole center
of their life, but
I do want to know

how I became
so much of a nuisance,
how I fell so far
from their grace,

that even the echo
of my voice
from the bottom of
this hole

is enough
to make them
shy away and leave me
there.

Leave a comment | tags: closure, meditations, poems, poetry | posted in poetry

July 10, 2016

Reserved For Those Who Remain Neutral…

By Tony Brown

Originally posted 11/19/2015.

The hottest places? No.
Dante knew better.
The cold places — the ones
where a candle in the crisis wind
freezes into a red icicle of pointless pose —
that’s where the neutral ones belong.
Hear them sniffling,
wriggling as they hang stiffly
on the fence.

Those of us on either side of a question
who cannot cease raging and roaring
may be wrong, may be right,
may burn in hell
for what we believe
or perhaps shall rise toward
the glorious sun.

We may believe
in neither heaven nor hell,
but we do believe
in heat.

1 Comment | tags: poems, poetry, revisions | posted in poetry

July 10, 2016

Collaborative poem

By Tony Brown

The good folks at the online journal Radius, seeking to address in some way this deeply disrupting historical moment, asked a number of past contributors to contribute to a collaborative poem addressing the theme of “Violence And Heartbreak.”

From editor Victor Infante’s post on the journal’s Facebook page:

“When the air radiates heartbreak, as it does now, there is no one effective way to speak to it as an artist. It’s too big, and too multilayered to be captured succinctly. We asked several of our favorite poets to try anyway. The result is a composite poem by Marvin Bell, Eirean Bradley, Tony Brown, Jenith Charpentier, Lea C. Deschenes Richard Fox, Suzanne Lummis, Heather Mac, Ellyn Maybe, Jaimes Palacio, Sholeh Wolpe and myself.”

This was the result.

Thanks for the opportunity. Proud to be a part of it.

Leave a comment | tags: collaborative work, poems, poems from prompts, Radius | posted in poetry

July 7, 2016

Targets

By Tony Brown

At 5:45 AM
I took out the trash
and did not startle
when a neighbor spoke to me
while my back was turned

because I am not a target.

I watered the container garden
when we were done speaking
and then sat right down
on my own front wall
in the high humidity
and, in the name of
going back to bed
and getting more sleep,
took a few hits off half a joint
and wasn’t too worried
though it was full daylight

because I am not a target.

I could have been a target.
I could have been but almost
in spite of all my handsome
paternal ancestors,
I pass for White
and always have
and thus regardless
of my own thoughts
and obsessions and internal
maladjustments to the way
my frame doesn’t fit my picture,

I am not a target.

I can love and rage
and live out loud
because I am not a target.

I can walk a street
with my eyes set straight upon
the eyes of others

because I am not a target.

I can watch every video
of targets, and target practice,
sit there staring,
crying out and raging up
and falling out,
then turn them off
or turn away

because I am not a target.

No one
and everyone
knows what’s coming.

No one
and everyone
understands

what will not stand;
no one knows how it will
fall. None but the targets

understand
how that’s going to feel.
Everyone’s

going to learn something —
at the very least, how
not to turn away;

at the very most,
how little it will be,
has ever been, about them.

I went back inside
and was ready to sleep

until one of my handsome
paternal ancestors

rose into view,
right through the floor;

she hovered there,
her regalia soaked in blood;

she shook her head,
she would not look me in the eye;

as hard as I wanted to be before her,
I could not be hard. I instead fell

to the same floor she transcended
so easily, and saw then

how difficult it was going to be
if I wanted to claim anything

of what I thought myself
to be; and when I looked up

she was gone, and the blazing eye
of a bull bison hung in her place

for a second only
before leaving me alone

to choose.

Leave a comment | tags: heritage, meditations, poems, poetry, political poems | posted in poetry

July 6, 2016

Language You Were Not Born With

By Tony Brown

Talking about a sensitive topic with friends;
there’s a word you think applies

but it’s from language
you were not born with.

You would like to include it
in the conversation — holding it in your mouth

before placing it with right reverence
and emphasis

on the perfect space on the board so to speak —
but are unsure of its reception

and frankly are at least slightly uneasy
with your right to use the word

as it is not
language you were born with.

You consult your dictionary
and find the word there, guide to pronunciation,

all the various connotations, even a sense
of the same dis-ease you feel while considering it.

Now you have permission. This is why
you own the dictionary in the first place:

to give yourself permission. To provide yourself
a place to keep

all the language you were not born with
until you choose to use it.

As you speak you have freedom of choice
to think (or not) of all who’ve died

to provide you with your dictionary. Those
whose mouths once held selected words

that were fortunately plucked
in their ripest darkest moments

and then tucked almost tenderly into your dictionary
to sleep until you needed them. Language

you were not born with, language still blood-sticky.
Talking around a sensitive subject with friends

and there’s the perfect place to stick the word.
This is why you own the dictionary: so you’ve got

something to point at in the silence that follows.
Something to stand on. Something

to hit the dead with when they come forward
to ask why you took what you took from them.

Leave a comment | tags: cultural appropriation, meditations, poems, poetry, political poems, race | posted in poetry

July 4, 2016

Fourth

By Tony Brown

This explosion laden sky —
simulacrum of war — red glare,
etc. Flag, etc. Drums and
parade and roasting, grilling,
etc. The best damn colors
in the whole damn world, etc.,
red among them, red the shade
of all of the blood-spill of our history, etc. —
I am trying to forget my usual rage
in favor of an uneasy delicacy around
one huge fear prompted tonight
at the fireworks show,
among the large trucks in the lot
surmounted with large US flags,
by a small brown boy who ran laughing
and clapping gladly at the exploding sky,
simulacrum of war, red glare, etc.,
knowing nothing but joy
at loud noise and a sky full of flames —
incendiary stars briefly shining
then burning out as they fell
as their cousins the bombs
fall elsewhere upon brown boys
like him, and tonight (at least) the large men
are laughing with him as he runs among their
giant waving flags; he is growing up
under those flags, under a
war-ripped sky, and I wonder: if and when
things change for him here,
will he end up loving or loathing the etc.
that is this place, will he end up
as afraid as I am of the large men
in the large trucks and their flags
the size of tents, of walls, etc., etc.,
when if ever will he become afraid
of all the etc. that comes these days
for so many as part of life
under the red and white and blue.

Leave a comment | tags: meditations, poems, poetry | posted in poetry

July 3, 2016

The Priesthood

By Tony Brown

Originally posted 8/11/2012.

Priests of every stripe
will tell you one thing
and forget to tell you
another.

They are politicians as much as they are
holy men and women.
They will do what’s right for them,
say it’s right from God.

If you want knowledge you can trust,
don’t ever listen to a human.
Get to an ocean or desert
or a mountain; in fact go

anywhere high desert and mountains
drop into the ocean.
Go sit near the shore for a week
or a few years.

You’ll get
everything you need.

I would tell you
to keep it to yourself
and not risk creating
a priesthood,

but it tends to follow.
You will end up
lying about it
to others,

telling yourself
it’s for their own good,
but it will be, of course,
for your own:

that’s the nature
of it, the message straight
from God: we will always
mess up the truth and have to

look for it again
where the high and bright dry
meets the cold
deep dark.

1 Comment | tags: meditations, poems, poetry, revisions | posted in poetry

July 1, 2016

Knucklehead (Dig)

By Tony Brown

Dig the white behind
my eyes, white within
my heart; in the blood
enough of me is white
to mask what is not,
but dig it, it’s there — mostly now
just a dark itch,
a reminder of fires
and bullets under the skin,
burrowed, shattering,
leaving the path
by which white
got in; dig

a recognition
of how I will likely
fail at last — torn
apart by my parts,
split open, pieces
separating and falling aside
like halves of a body
in an old and violent
cartoon. Dig how in fact I am
an old and violent cartoon

forever imagining
fictional demises
I come back from
in the next reel, different
but the same, same old
knucklehead,
same old fucked up
half and half,
same old mess
everyone thinks
is playing for laughs —

dig that crazy headdress,
dig those big brown eyes,
dig those whines, those pains,
that history no one
cares to address,
that incompetence
which is only to be expected,
that blood with the dark tinge,
that white white scar all over him
and inside him,
that white white being he is
never going to not be. Dig
how deep he digs to try and
get past it.
Dig the hole
where he lies down,
hoping to sleep.