Category Archives: poetry

September 20, 2015

The Cosmos Of Riddles

Blue green riot
beyond the bridge,
weeds and pond under
noon-strained light.
Farther on,
dark-bound trees;
farther still, of course,
ocean, desert,
blocky stone
and blinding ice.

Every vision the sum
of all its varied confusions.
Every confusion a union open
on all sides, itself
a new cluster of visions
and confusions.

Your feeling before
each vision:
consider a nest of eggs
about to hatch.
You don’t know your birds;
these stones contain birds.
Open your eyes
and your heart speeds into
something less beat
and more flutter,
a cymbal’s shimmer
and not a crash.

An understanding of this
isn’t for consumption
through sale, barter,
trade. This isn’t meant for
the dank music of ease
and packaged wisdom —
not this glimpse
of the blue green riot,
the warring perceptions
telling the whole wrenching story
of this whole wrenching world, no;
you’re going to have to work
for this one.

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

September 19, 2015

No Apology

By Tony Brown

It used to sting my bones
when someone called me “selfish”
for not having had children,
and it has taken me years
to learn how to say
what I have always known.
Now that I am
this far from the beginning
and this close to the end,
I will say it and be at rest.

Wherever you are now,
you who were unborn to me,
my unknown child or children,
I say this:

you are blessed,

for our absent, never-was bond
would have been a mistake
made of lightning:
immediate fire consuming all,
echoing ever after.
No one could have survived.

Be glad forever, wherever you are,
that you are not my children, that I am no
father of yours; that my storms were not yours,
that my slow burn-down was not yours as well;
that whatever tenderness
we may have felt for each other
was not wasted into ash. Be glad
that while I did not know how
to speak of it,
I understood it well enough
to keep it from happening again.

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

September 16, 2015

The Business Of Profiling

By Tony Brown

–– for Ahmed Mohamed, all who came before him, and all those yet to come…

Excuse me, Mr. Chimera — won’t you
smile for the camera?
Won’t you please smile, Mr. Chimera?
How many beasts strong are you,
Mr. Chimera? How many beasts
do you harbor inside?

We must deconstruct you
like a problematic sentence,
ensure that every word
is analyzed for bullets and grudge;

is it tick, tick, tick
or tick, tock, tick, tock
we are hearing, Mr. Chimera?
Are you bomb
or timepiece, timepiece or bomb?

Your outside makes us fear
what might be inside…
what’s inside you, Mr. Chimera,
what’s inside?

Are you angry enough
to explode now,
or are you just growing toward fire
later on?

Two choices, Mr. Chimera;
two choices, no in between, no
alternative. It’s beyond our imagination
that we might not be right
and if there’s a chance we are right
we must act as if it is a certainty,

no matter how odd or angry
that seems to you.
We’re not sorry at our lack of remorse:
the forms must be followed, Mr. Chimera,
the forms must be followed…

So won’t you smile, nod,
dress right, Mr, Chimera;
won’t you stand with your hands
behind your back in your natural stance,
Mr. Chimera? Why won’t you smile,
Mr. Chimera? Why don’t you smile?
Why can’t we get you to smile?

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

September 16, 2015

Moment

By Tony Brown

I beg on the street:

May I have a moment?

Given one, I say

Thank you.
Thank you
for giving me
this moment.
I will take it
and pocket it
and hold it close
until I need it.

Perhaps I will never need it
and if so I will keep it
until the end of my life.
I might want it again then,
or I might not; if the latter is so

it will become my last will’s
only bequest:

.”..in the matter of the moment
I was given freely
by another to use as I pleased,
I am pleased to pass on to… “

Some folks will say this is ridiculous;

those are the ones
who have likely had
a life full of moments
in such abundance
that they spent them foolishly.

Still, they always seem to die
still rich in them, flush with them,
enough moments remaining at the end
to line their caskets with time enough to waste,
even in the grave; meanwhile

the rest of us who have had to savor
the lean banquets of our days, our stolen
slim margins, our nails bitten to blood
waiting for checks to clear and bills
to hold off one more day; those of us
without many moments of our own —
I speak for all of us when I say that

if I may have a moment
it will be golden to me,
if I may have a moment
know that I will not spend it foolishly.

And if it goes unspent
I will offer it to you, my love,
heir of all my stolen moments.
We never had enough time together
between hard jobs and long commutes
and worry and famine and struggle.

If someday we can no longer share
stolen or begged
or borrowed moments, rest assured
that I shall leave all I have
to you.

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

September 14, 2015

Leftover Child

By Tony Brown

Back in what’s left
of home turf
among abandoned houses
with lawns long ago
taken by tall mullein and
brittle brush.
Tan faded curtains askew
in flyspecked windows —

is that a slight movement
behind one? Did it stir?
That one, top left window in
that roof-to-ground shingled
gray house? Is it possible
that someone
lives there still?

Someone alive in Her House?

Childhood stories
of Her House, house
of Old Lady Shady
come sifting back: she’d be
close to 130 by now
if she were alive
so it’s probably not either her

or her son, the Hog,
he’d be
long gone

which is good, good because
those aren’t good stories.

But someone’s in there,
now it’s certain;
there is a face
that’s not bothering
to hide itself,
a child’s face
looking out.
A thin face.
A blue face —

or instead, moonlight
playing on shadow fabric
and dirty glass.

Something’s
definitely moving,
but inside or outside?
Can’t tell; too many
bad stories,
too much
moonlight,
too much
remembered
filth makes it
too easy to call up

a leftover child
from those ruins.

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

September 11, 2015

Drowning In A White Man

By Tony Brown

Originally posted 9/12/2011.

I’m drowning in a white man! Can’t breathe,
my chest is caving in; no one can see me drowning

for I’ve gone down, down, and down again;
I’ve sunk so deeply into him.

What I wouldn’t give right now
for a pipe and some cold air,

a fire, a circle of singers
around a big, solid drum.

What I wouldn’t give for firm tradition
and family to hang onto,

stories and cousins to pull me up and out.
Not likely. Not anymore.

Instead I’ll grow
thin white gills and survive,

but I won’t thrive — no.
What I would have to give to thrive, I will not give.

2 Comments | tags: heritage, poems, poetry, revisions | posted in poetry

September 10, 2015

Hubris

By Tony Brown

Originally posted 6/16/2010.

Reading news
of black widow spiders
in supermarket grapes,
lightning that burned down
a statue of Jesus;

looked at the stories
with a practiced eye
for meaning,
sought connections;
was at a loss

until he saw a third story
of a miracle cure in a remote land:
a blind child touched
by an electric eel
awoke from a coma with full sight.

Recognized how to spin it all
into a narrative he could believe:
the sky’s fire stroking down;
the poison in the seemingly safe fruit;
the girl opening her eyes to see

a circle of incredulous doctors
straining to understand —
pride stumbling
against nature, then
nature laughing.

Congratulated himself
on figuring it out.
Congratulated himself
on besting God
at the Great Game Of Dice,

at getting the Win; then
turned and died
before he could
explain it all
to everyone.

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

September 10, 2015

The Razor Beauty Of Things

By Tony Brown

Originally posted 12/26/2007. Formerly titled “Still”

I’m not sure how they happened
but there were times in my life
when everything slowed
and each of my moves was perfect,
no wasted effort,
arms synched perfectly swinging
as I turned toward the yard
away from the screen door closing behind me.
My vision sharpened at the edges
and deepened at the center of the field of view;
a jonquil stood out dead still from the lawn, its petals
cut into the green behind it.

There was a time I could stop the world
but I didn’t understand how useful that could be.
I have forgotten how. I have learned
how to think instead. Instead of
making the world stop
I stop myself and sit ass-heavy on the couch
thinking of good times.
Whenever I leave the house
I close the door behind me carefully now, never
letting it slam, making sure of the lock; I don’t know
how good times happen anymore
and I don’t want to scare them off.

I step out of the door
and I don’t see much color
out there, which is fine;
I’m excited now mostly by monochrome —
marathon television viewing, the relief
when a cigarette is finished and I can breathe
something that’s not
grey fire in my throat, the relief of
the fire that lights the next one,
the ice cubes in the whisky,
the longing for a long dead sleep
because the only time the world stops now
is when I am not thinking of it,
when I cannot see it at all,
when the dark eats my dreams
and at last for a while at least
I’m not regretting
the nagging poisonous hope
that one day I’ll remember the world,
recall how I used to see
the razor beauty of things
growing without thought.

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

September 9, 2015

The Tangle

By Tony Brown

Originally posted 11/24/2013.

This tangled mind
takes the word “mouse”
and transforms it
to “rocket” or “dagger”

or “fishing shack”
when I hear it spoken;
the thought of vermin feet
in my walls becomes

a space race,
a war,
a life
on the sea.

Hear mouse, realize everything.

This is something that is Wrong with me
according to the arbiters of Right,
but I’ve learned to live with it.
I’ve turned into a poet, though.

I mostly call it blessing and not curse,
though when I thought
the word “blessing”
I admit at first I heard

“California redwoods” and then “magma”
as “blessing” became a vision
of forests jumping into blaze
along rivers and roads of liquid fire.

Blessing is fire here within me.

Any one word leads me to another
as fire leads to ash, as flash flood
leads to canyon, as mouse
leads to dagger rocket fishing shack,

as blessing leads
to volcano-sparked trees
lit like candles
along the coast…

Shh, says the Universe,
by which I mean
the dying willow
in the backyard.

Shh.

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

September 7, 2015

Tomatoes

By Tony Brown

Lost poem that keeps nagging me.
Dates to 2000 or so following the death of a close friend at Easter that year.
This is an attempt to recreate it, knowing I’m no longer the person who wrote the original. RIP, Terry…

I come home
thinking of fall and
craving tomatoes.

I go to my backyard beds
and pick whatever’s ripe
for my favorite summer meal:
thick-sliced plum tomatoes,
Gorgonzola cheese,
a few shreds of basil,
balsamic vinegar,
light on the olive oil.

You once questioned me:
why not traditional Mozzarella?
I said it’s because I feel that
strong blues make flavors pop
and without strong flavors,
what’s the point? You tasted it,
agreed, told me later
you could no longer imagine
not using a strong blue cheese
in a tomato salad, and I was
as well pleased as I could be
that we’d fallen once again into
the same place on something —

I remember this as I stare into
strong blues and bright reds
in this bowl, stare into oil bubbles,
a brown slick of vinegar, remember
you weren’t here to help me
plant this year, to plant the beds
scant weeks after your passing;
weren’t here to help me weed
and toss and water and feed;
realize again, as if for the first time,
that you aren’t here to help me savor
the likely last summer salad of the year,
picked ahead
of the inevitable
killing frost.

3 Comments | tags: death, meditations, poems, poetry, revisions | posted in poetry

September 6, 2015

The Ceiling Called God

By Tony Brown

When I was young,
God lived in buildings.
We heard He was everywhere
but we knew his home address
was down the street, just past
the market.

Now I think God is a building.
No walls, no floor, just a ceiling
as high as one can imagine.
Every door you can find, marked or not,
is an illusion that one must work with
to find the path to lead into God.

Some tell me I’m not right
or I’m downright wrong
as they sneer about the whole notion
of The Ceiling Called God; no matter.
There’s infinite room
for all of them
under those rafters
when there are no walls to divide us,
when there’s no floor upon which
to trample each other as we rise
toward a great height
we will never touch.
God The Ceiling
is always out of reach,

doesn’t know what we’re up to,
doesn’t care. It hangs over us
without fussing and war and struggle,
with no gender, no creed, no race,
not even a face. Serene in its indifference
to those things, the Ceiling Called God
does its job and assumes we
must be doing the same.

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

September 3, 2015

The Best Eyes

By Tony Brown

The best eyes to me are always the ones
with a slight cast to them
as they focus on things unseen,

such as the ghosts of vintage pets
tapping across the old linoleum floor
of the tilted kitchen,

or the glimpses
of long dead children darting
into the hall closet to hide,

children who are not there
when we jerk open the door
to catch them, though we can hear them giggling

somewhere else in the house. Aren’t those
the best eyes? I may not love the person
who owns them, but I cannot deny

my love for those eyes that can see
what I cannot, eyes I admire
for their cursed accuracy

now that I am so blunted
by age and pain and cynicism
that I am trying to stop believing in such things

before my sorrow
at never seeing them
can crush me, at last, into nothing but blind dust.

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

September 2, 2015

My Dance, My Bad, My Deep

By Tony Brown

Originally posted 2/7/2013.

My dance, my bad, my deep…
gave a sorrow opening,
loosed it on
the gap within, and now:

ornery. Tantrum.
Layabout and cry. Going to victim
this whole long day; go pick me some kudzu,
funeral bouquet for never-ending grief show.

Still, got rocker hips, roller hips, jazz
groin and lips and hips;
joy must end up somewhere
when pushed from head and heart…thus,

I end up as one sad grinder. End up bad.
Bad, sinking in deep but still, there’s
one way to set it off
and hold it back —

so I’m off to music while still in the hole
to give my bad, my deep a resistance,
give it rhythm, a big mole digging in
under the roots, charged up,

rubbling my dark village, quake cracking,
flipping dirt into the light. When I, frightened, shake,
I still gotta dance my dance, my bad, my deep;
I dance, even if I dance sad, because that’s my gotta happen.

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

September 2, 2015

Eggplant Parmesan Versus Evil

By Tony Brown

I understand the glorious alchemy
of salting slices of just picked raw eggplant
to draw up the bitter essence from the flesh
so that it may be rinsed away,

and it’s not hard at all for me to delight
in the mysteries of the scent
rising from the oven as the slices
are baked for inclusion in a dish
to be served late tonight to someone well loved.

I understand these things.
I feel the joy of service and making
when I turn to them from news of this world
that’s starving for such joy.

I don’t know how to approach those children
dead on beaches and in the streets;

how to speak to those among us so willing
to let freedom be wrung out of us,

can’t bear to lose the sweetness
being drawn from us daily;

I don’t know how to love a nation
so openly bent on hate and madness,

how to love and live in that world — but

I can ladle good fresh tomato sauce
onto the layers of eggplant and lay on
thick cheese; I can bake it and wait for it
to come into its glory; I can broil it briefly
until it bubbles, I can set it before a loved one
and say “here’s something”
with some small joy,

for here indeed is something,
something small
made from food I grew to be good
and food I sought out to make it better;
this is a thing I can do
to make love visible
that is too often hidden.

It’s not enough,
but tonight it will have to do
to keep away despair,

to fill us up.

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

August 31, 2015

Broken Windows

By Tony Brown

They say a lot of things…

they say a rising tide lifts all boats.
They say policing quality of life issues
(broken windows, sad panhandlers)
will raise all boats.
They say the eyes
are the windows of the soul;
if the soul has broken windows
that’s the fault of the face they’re in
and we should police them
right into the big clean up…

they say a lot of things…a lot of things…

They say the path to a man’s heart
runs through his stomach.
They say center mass
is the best way to aim.
They say the surest path to the heart
is to aim for it directly
and if the heart shot misses
then a gut shot kills too,
slowly but certainly,
especially if you can wait hours for it
to kill…

they say a lot of things, along with so many things
they don’t say…

they say race is a social construct.
They don’t say they built it to bind and blind and kill.

They say all lives matter.
They don’t say how they define “all.”

They say it’s best to be polite if you have to scream.
They don’t say much, politely or otherwise, when someone does…

they say so many things,
they never shut up,
they don’t say enough
when they’re talking,
they say what we should do,
they don’t say what they will do,
they don’t say they’ll stop
wringing their hands
or sitting on them
and put them to use,
they don’t say they say so much by saying so much,
by saying so little…behind it all
a white sheet,
brown shirt, gun hand
voice…