Long road. Decent
scenery. Occasional
rock falls spilling onto
the shoulders, more often
sheets of gravel across pavement,
left there by runoff.
Careful, careful, you say.
Not too fast, you have
time. A long road
demands time, requires
attention when you
are this far
from one home
and not close enough yet
to a new one. There may not be
enough time left to get there
of course but on the way
you need to be careful,
careful, especially as you
approach what you think will be
the destination. Being
too eager is how you slip
from the road and go
over the edge, dragging rock
and gravel with you
as you roll screeching
your resignation all the way
to the silence that will flood
your stop at the bottom.
Last Stop
Aging Into The Work
Begin
by switching
from late night
frenzy jags
to mornings
before the coffee
has finished brewing,
changing
your work wardrobe from
naked or T-shirts and briefs
in bed
to full dress
in whatever you decide
to see as your office,
refusing to rely
on inspiration in bursts — begin
not carrying a notebook
everywhere and letting
the lines come and go within
as they see fit, trusting
the Work itself will put
those that would matter most
back in your hand when the time
demands it. Continue like this
for as many years as you have left
to spend on it. It may be few,
it may be many, it may be
none at all and of course
the Work itself
will continue without you
but when all is done,
take comfort in how
serious you were
about finding your own way
in your fading light.
One Over
They long to be
elsewhere
People who are not
in their places want to be
anywhere but where they sit
seeming to be
comfortable
Happiness
and ease don’t look
the same on everyone
They long to be
elsewhere and
it feels like my duty
to assist them and help
move them along
to their next place
It’s a sacred duty
We have a right
to move the uncomfortable
to where they belong
and these people
clearly don’t belong
here in my neighborhood
They are smiling but
they look so lost
whenever we make eye contact
They look like they’d be happier
one street over
One town over
One country over
The Approach
The approach is through a field of nettles
on fire, crows rasping away from the woods
at the edges of the field, locusts shrilling
behind them, hunger in full cry
over all. You must run out among those thorns
tugging you through whatever path
seems softest though no path here is soft
and the noise carries a still-greater sting.
That amplified voice of your choices, soundtrack
of the hard film you’ve made of your life, shall draw
more blood than the nettles and more sweat
from the back of your neck than the fire behind you
ever could. The approach is in fact likely more important
than the destination and will long burn and echo within you.
You hope the arrival makes up for it
in all significant ways, even as you know
you’ll hear the soundtrack until you have no more life
to surrender to hearing it. There’s hope of a song unlike it
in the air of whatever’s beyond the pain. So:
will you go, lassie, go?
Birch
Revised from February 2022.
I’ve been birch,
the definition of bent.
Look me up. See how weight
falls from me. It is how I am
able to hold myself intact
within my pock-scarred,
inconvenient bark.
I’ve been oak,
stubborn unhollowed pillar.
Hear the rain of acorns denting what’s below me.
I am seen as somehow admirable
until I fall and crush others,
or until someone else falls and is broken
while trying to pass over what I leave behind
year after year.
Now, I wish I had been sawgrass or perhaps
wild oats or purslane, enduring, closer to the soil;
or maybe some weed I cannot name now,
less obvious, more or less scarce or extinct;
but instead I’ve been
more than once
one of the trees we lean on
to provide us with metaphors
for falling and breaking,
ending and beginning again
in the breaking that follows a fall.
Whoever can say it ends here
will free me from a cycle
built from splinters.
Praise Poem Against The Grain
Revised from 2009.
There are people who think we should all write more,
one poem a day, one thousand poems a day,
five hundred fifty five thousand poems a day,
one for every thought that slips along our nerves —
excepting only poems about poetry.
The belly full of meaning poetry offers should be emptied.
The places it lives should be cut out of us.
We should never write of it or speak of it.
What nonsense — to go into church
denying that church is worth discussing in church.
To refuse to cry ecstasy when ecstasy is upon us,
to refuse to explain what it’s like to those all around.
I’m ill informed tonight, and half asleep.
I haven’t watched the news for a week.
I’m alone with no one but the cat
curled next to me on a fleece blanket.
A documentary on Crohn’s Disease
plays unwatched in the next room.
I could get up, or I could stay here
until spring.
All the poetry I have tonight is the poetry of poetry itself —
a right whale inside me, dangerous, endangered,
rising island within my body reminding me of marvels
that could slip away and never return.
There may be something else to write about someday
and the poem I write then may be fibrous, luminous,
may hold together on its own
and pass from me without pain.
Tonight I write one poem about poetry,
write it over and over again,
one poem for the blessing of knowing
that poetry still exists in me,
even if
it’s hanging
by a thread. Even if
it hurts.
Adjusting The Woke Curriculum
They live for
their children
only through their
bullets.
All they will grow to know is
how to love a bullet and
how to scorn what a bullet
can cut.
They say we’re in a shorn world now,
skinned of warmth and softness.
No learning to be found in anything now
but tales of flame and steel.
So what’s with
that sobbing kid
poking with a stick
at the just killed rabbit in the gutter
in the front of the neighbor’s house?
Must be queer. Must be damaged.
Get him out of sight, root through
his books, then shoot or set fire
to what ails him.
Cures For Imagined Illnesses
the most common side effect
is nickels in your blood
other side effects may include
eagles overhead
metallic responses to stimuli
wooden responses to the scratch of dug-in heels
the most common side effect
is a darkness flavored dance step
other side effects may include
nausea and irrational amusement
thudding banging on love locked doors
creaking banging on basement couches
the most common side effect
is an inability to love as you once did
other common side effects may include
uncommon scents blowing through the neighborhood
thoughts of kissing a leaf or knife
thoughts of how to resuscitate a Sphinx
Once again…
“The Poetry Of Place” will be held via Zoom on Sunday, January 22nd, 2023 at from 2 PM to 4PM EST.
In this workshop, we will look at how incorporating vivid, arresting sensory imagery can stimulate and energize your writing. We’ll look at examples of such poems and at some ideas about why this kind of effort is vital to The Work regardless of genre. (While we’ll be focused on poetry, you can use this information in long fiction, short fiction, etc., just as easily.)
Although the workshop will include some writing exercises and opportunities to share, it’s not primarily designed to be a generative session; I hope that instead you’ll leave with some ideas and a sense of what is possible when you “ground” your own Work in a strong sense of place.
For the record? I’ve got 30+ years of experience as a trainer and workshop facilitator for various corporations, non-profits, and government agencies, but this will be the first time I’ll use those skills for a personally developed topic. It likely won’t be the last…
The cost to the general public* is $35.00 for the session, payable through:
Venmo:
@Anthony-Brown-95
(if asked for a # after that, it’s 4124)
or
Paypal:
tony.w.brown@gmail.com
Last day to join up is Friday, January 20. **
I’d love to see you there. Drop me a line through here or at the above email address with any questions.
T
*Patrons of my Patreon site in the $10/month or higher tiers may attend for free.
** For security reasons and to help prevent Zoom bombing, I will send participants the Zoom link once payment is made or (for Patrons) once a confirmation message is sent to me on the site.
Couple At The Corner
Couple parked at the corner,
lights off, big gestures;
arguing perhaps, speaking of
love perhaps, or perhaps of money,
talking loudly of how one
may stall the other, how love
conquers money, how money
straps down love.
A newer model car,
which means nothing. A younger
looking couple, as far can be told
in this light, in this darkness — which
means nothing.
Perhaps instead
they are older
and reliving their shared past,
or their unshared pasts. Maybe one’s
had the love, one’s had the money
till now and they’re looking toward
whatever comes next
and not between them.
Perhaps,
perhaps,
perhaps — old song
in someone’s head. Old wounds
singing to new ones. The world
surging on beyond whatever
they are gesturing toward.
The streetlight
sputters, then goes out.
The Blessed
“then we move like tigers on Vaseline” — D. Bowie
Guitars waiting on stage:
trees around a clearing,
glorious hazards
waiting there.
Evokes
a forest rife with
stealthy predation,
camouflage, danger on ice.
Suggests
the existence
of a treated
jungle floor,
big cats
disturbed but adapting,
beginning to enjoy
gliding about.
Regret nothing,
pray for no one here.
Sliding about in darkness
is freedom.
Yes, I’m posting it again…
“The Poetry Of Place” will be held via Zoom on Sunday, January 22nd, 2023 at from 2 PM to 4PM EST.
In this workshop, we will look at how incorporating vivid, arresting sensory imagery can stimulate and energize your writing. We’ll look at examples of such poems and at some ideas about why this kind of effort is vital to The Work regardless of genre. (While we’ll be focused on poetry, you can use this information in long fiction, short fiction, etc., just as easily.)
Although the workshop will include some writing exercises and opportunities to share, it’s not primarily designed to be a generative session; I hope that instead you’ll leave with some ideas and a sense of what is possible when you “ground” your own Work in a strong sense of place.
For the record? I’ve got 30+ years of experience as a trainer and workshop facilitator for various corporations, non-profits, and government agencies, but this will be the first time I’ll use those skills for a personally developed topic. It likely won’t be the last…
The cost to the general public* is $35.00 for the session, payable through:
Venmo:
@Anthony-Brown-95
(if asked for a # after that, it’s 4124)
or
Paypal:
tony.w.brown@gmail.com
Last day to join up is Friday, January 20. **
I’d love to see you there. Drop me a line through here or at the above email address with any questions.
T
*Patrons of my Patreon site in the $10/month or higher tiers may attend for free.
** For security reasons and to help prevent Zoom bombing, I will send participants the Zoom link once payment is made or (for Patrons) once a confirmation message is sent to me on the site.
Updated list of available eBooks, January 2023
I have eBooks/PDFs of my work available for sale to those who might be interested. All were previously offered as rewards to various tiers of my Patreon subscribers (a program I will be continuing there, btw). If you want access to the most recent collections as they come out, I’d go there. Just sayin’.
The titles include:
Annual “best of the year” collections. Currently available: 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022.
“Then Play On,” a chapbook of poems about music
“Pushpins and Thumbtacks,” a volume about icons and cliches of American culture
“Noted In Passing,” a revised eBook of a chapbook from 2012 that was a limited edition written for a single feature
“White Pages,” my collection of poems related to race and its role in my life
“Decay Diary,” a collection of poems about aging
“In the Time Of Contagion,” a collection of poems about you-know-what
“The Wrong Flowers,” a prose/poetry meditation on the state of the USA in 2020
“Show Your Work,” an eBook version of an earlier, out of print chapbook.
“The Day,” a selection from 20 years of poems about 9/11/01.
“Ideation,” a short collection of poems old and new about living with depression and suicidal ideation.
“Long Winded,” a collection of longer poems.
“songs for reluctant warriors,” poems for the US political moment of early summer, 2022.
“3 Quarters” released in October 2022. Random and recent.
“Owner’s Manual” released in December of 2022. Poems in the form of directions.
Minimal # of repeats among the collections.
All are available as either PDF or ePUB formats.
If you are interested, let me know with a comment on this post. They are 1 for $5 through Paypal or Venmo, 3 for $12. We can talk about more if you want more.
Thanks.
Activist Chic
I’ve punched up. I’ve punched back. I keep
punching though every blow busts my hands a bit more.
I don’t much care about direction. All I feel
is a need to punch. Swinging is
patriotic. Connecting is manly. Walking away
to seek a new battle is as natural to me
as a storm disappearing after shredding
everything, heading off to look for work elsewhere,
as staying home to rebuild is work best left
to those who won’t punch hard enough
to level a field that needs clearing. I level up.
My home’s a bad place now; no one’s willing
to do dirty work. Dirty wet work is how
I have become what I am: alone. Advancing
toward the next battlefield, then the next.
Making my way away from what I thought was home.
Out West
I wish I could get back to San Diego
where the breeze is full of distant danger
as it comes in off the waves and warships
sit forever ready, but for the moment I was there
all was at peace and all I had to do was sit and watch
the light and the water and the bright promises
of what was ahead, and put what was behind
out of my mind.
I wish I could get back to Seattle
where I slept on a hotel roof and raised hell
with all my friends on streets in the shadow
of the Space Needle. It pointed up, I lay there
looking up, it barely rained that week, but I had my cot
under an overhang so what if it did? They say
it’s all gone, all I learned to love in a week, all the dirt
that made it lovely, all the night that made it brighter
in the safe corners of the hotel roof.
I wish I could get back to a carnival I loved
as it was when I was eighteen —
to any of them, really; terrifying workers
in the booths, terrifying rides in the midway,
a field full of games built to seduce and rob us
of our last dollars under the bright lights —
then I wish I could get back to how it was
in the dark field behind the carnival,
beyond the last slat fence; the field where I lay
on my back, her long hair framing my face from above,
the moon visible behind her and above us both,
as our hearts at last began to slow down.
Dark Matter 