Tag Archives: humor

June 25, 2014

Triumph In The War Over Nick Drake

By Tony Brown

Originally posted 3/18/2012.  

The overnight radio’s playing
Nick Drake
at exactly 2:04 AM again
as if there were not other options
by the score to choose from.

Tonight, I refuse
to let him do
my work for me.
I’m not going to torture myself
listening to him
while I contemplate my desperation,
all the while envying
his fingerstyle technique;

I always end up
forgetting the former
and pissed off at the latter, usually
while holding a guitar.
Afterward I’m always still desperate
but looking forward
to getting that tuning right 
tomorrow,

and the whole point of desperation
is to get past
looking forward to things — 

so let my soundtrack not be
Nick Drake.  
Let it instead be
Jackie DeShannon’s “Put A Little Love
In Your Heart.”  
God, yes.  That works

perfectly.  I start picturing Iggy Pop
singing it all Morrison-spit-take gruff
and no one believing
a word of that song ever again.

Chase it with ABBA or something —
here, let me
get the dial —
candied oldies
of a different stripe.  Perfect music
for the darkest hours

because if you actually sing
of despair, you know,
if you can hold its kite-lines
and wrangle it into song,
what you get is not in fact
despair;

what you get instead
is triumph,
even if just for a moment
and even if you later
succumb.

 

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May 4, 2014

Product Placement

By Tony Brown

If I tell you
I’m sadly listening to 
the music of
my favorite band,
is that enough
for you to see 
all I’m driving at,
or must I 
name them? If I do
will you then have
enough information
that I can avoid
the hard work of
writing this poem?

If I tell you
I wear nothing
with a logo unless
it’s second hand
but will talk all day
about the brands
of guitar and computer
I prefer, and do not
hide their logos
when using them in public,
does that explain
my corner of
our bubble well enough,
or do I have to name
the logos I won’t wear
and the logos I will embrace
in order for you to have
a peak experience 
from my work?

If I lament 
art based in 
product placement
ironically enough,
am I sufficiently distant
from the practice
that you’ll allow me
to drop a name or two
as an anchor
to sink it?  Or will I have to
write this all again
two years from now
in order to get the juicy nods
from those sage enough
to understand

that the calculation required
to rage this way against marketing
is in and of itself

a brand?

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April 25, 2014

Silk Purse

By Tony Brown

He said,

“God, I’m sick of 
poets, of hanging with
poets — those cheesy 
thieves, those fame-famished
greedheads, those little-loved
deluded souls
who think the world
owes them a little regard
just because
they can make music
out of talking.”

I mustered my courage,
gathered my strength,
and responded,

“Hey…

that was a great line.
You gonna use that?”

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April 23, 2014

CAT!

By Tony Brown

CAT!

go eat the food I gave you

upon which money was spent
upon which I spent money 
I could have used for something
more useful than feeding a cat

(like 400 guitar picks or a solid gold hat)

CAT!

why won’t you eat the food I gave you?

This morning you couldn’t get enough of it
And this plate’s been filled from the SAME CAN
But you turn your lovely whiskered snout away
as swiftly as a politician turns
from last week’s firm position

to its opposite

CAT!

I understand you need to be
a CAT
and therefore always
mysterious
always 
the avatar of 
Contradiction

CAT!

you are making me 
nuts
you are making me
question
if I can ever understand 
how to make you happy

CAT!

the whole time
you’re flinging things 
to the floor
and screaming
for something
that is obviously 
the food you aren’t getting

(whatever that may be)

you are purring
so loudly
in what is either
delight at my attentions
or gloating at my tension

CAT!

suddenly
you’re on my shoulder
rubbing my ear
still rumbling like a 
tummy

and then you’re gone 
and the crazy is over

for a few minutes until 
you come back in 
licking your chops
from the now-empty plate

CAT!
you
damnable
adorable

CAT!

it’s clear why 
you were worshipped
once upon a time

you’re as unpredictable
as any
deity
ever

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April 20, 2014

Poem About Poetry

By Tony Brown

Once or more a day I pull myself together
and face this art too many say
is not itself a proper subject for 
art.  They scold that writing a poem
about poetry is lazy, a mark of 
having nothing to write about,

and then they sneer and slip away
to their cozy mutual masturbations
on topics of more import 
such as comparing themselves
to superheroes
or more talk of how it feels
to fuck, to wanna fuck, to be
fucking, to be not fucking…

I turn back to how I am,

to the work of speaking of everything
under the sun — even to superheroes and
to fucking, if that even needs to be said;

but if there now and then comes a time 
to sing
of how this often makes me feel 
like a superhero,

of how I’m wrapped 
in the arms of something greater
than myself when I am in this art,

of how I am humbled now and then
to see who I am through the stacking
and slashing and burning of words, 

of how now and then I get to hold
the edge of the universe before
I slip back into daily life,

when a song comes that demands I sing of this
I will sing it,

even if you  
turn away, your capes 
fluttering, your asses 
bouncing with your own joys;

I will sing it
and be well pleased
that I did not sing it

for you.

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April 19, 2014

Too Much, Methinks

By Tony Brown

Not wasting a moment
more of my breath on him.
Not wasting time. Look at him,
a waste, a time suck.

To say the least,
he’s a shit.  A turd
not worthy of a second wipe.  
He’s a disaster, 

to say the least,
to say the absolute least
in the least time 
with the fewest and shortest words,

with no words, perhaps,
with a gesture
or one eyebrow,
one finger
raised, one elbow digging into
your target rib —

get a load
of that guy.  Of him.
Need I say more than that — 

if I do, if I need to explain myself,
you better pull up a chair
as there’s a lot to be said,
to say the least,
a lot to be said,
I guess
it’s kind of a
long story.

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April 16, 2014

Cryptozoology

By Tony Brown

A specialty of the fabled
electric sand-eel,
a creature extant only on
my mind’s favorite desert island,
is its ability to regulate its power
so that in one stroke it may bolt
across a room to kill or
perhaps light a fire
for worn travelers.

Among the creases in the folds
of the skin of the imaginary
pocket elephant
one may find
the algae, called by some “manna,”
which saved the Israelites
on their forty year stroll to
what they call home.

The solitary helicopter wing
of the bass wasp,
the blank face of
the spotted closet snake,
the fully functional heart
growing on the outside
of the Damson’s plum warbler:

can’t you hear that external heart
pulse as it’s calling you,
doesn’t the sting of the wasp
throb within you,
isn’t that
the tiny drumming
of the elephant’s feet?

Go ahead and admit how real they are,
how real you’d like them to be,
then make them more real to everyone else —
repeat these stories of their existence up and down,
praise the habitats they inhabit,
sing hymns for their well-being and
soon enough they will spring
into just as full a reality

as reverse racists,
welfare queens,
and the culture affirming smile
of Chief Wahoo.

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March 16, 2014

Do It For The Exposure

By Tony Brown

you are an artist with bite
and damned good at that.
your teeth gave you

everything so don’t you
dare sell out.  spit your work, 
yourself, even your teeth,

into a bowl.
give it all away
in the street. you should

refuse to take money
for any of it
when it’s offered.

how dare you believe
you need to eat
to continue?

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January 5, 2014

Honesty Is Only One Of A Number Of Policies

By Tony Brown

They say
you are talented
and I believe them
That you work hard
I believe them
That you are acclaimed
and I believe them
That you are becoming known
I believe them

How could I not
as I trust them
and know them to be
fine judges of such things

I just don’t find myself
liking
any of what your talent
and hard work
have produced so far
and am thus unconcerned
with your acclaim
and fame

I don’t think it’s me
and I don’t think it’s you
It’s just two
not meshing

and that happens
more than now and then
so

stop calling me out
stop arguing
and
stop trying so hard
to convince me

I have carried
no ill will
toward you
till now
Let us keep it that way

Be well
with yourself and
forget me
and my opinion
if we do not suit you

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December 26, 2013

No Mood To work

By Tony Brown

Cold enough outside
to be the frozen part of Hell —
people forget that there’s a
frozen part full of Satan and
traitors, at least that’s what
Dante Aligheri said and he
is one poet who
actually seemed
to know things.

It’s cold enough outslde
that my anatomy isn’t buying it,
commenting through
the fingers and nose tip
that I ought to get inside
before one wince more
slices through.
In other words:

better to be inside, even if
I’ve nothing better to do than this,
even if that sounds like a betrayal
of the Work.

Though I can think of things
I could be doing that would hurt less
than this, I’ll do this
and stay warm,
braving Hell’s cold rage
for taking its name
in vain.

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December 18, 2013

Senses

By Tony Brown

She says
her vision trumps
her hearing.
She would rather be
deaf than blind.

I don’t wish either fate
for you, I respond.
Why would you
want to discuss this?
Why start
our relationship
here?

Isn’t every relationship
a case of constantly deciding
which senses to trust,
and which to disregard,
she asks?

Why not
just start
by admitting it
and going
into that void
together?

Hard to argue
with someone
who smells like
silence, darkness,
and roses.

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December 12, 2013

Reassurance

By Tony Brown

when in the corner of a dark room
one sees the shadow of a demon
in the form of a blank cardboard cutout
of a tall and threatening human

when one then walks toward the demon
with shallow breaths while clutching a weapon
only to learn that the demon is a childhood cartoon
whose face was turned away so it could not be readily seen

when this happens because one has plunged a knife
into the cardboard cutout to seemingly slay the demon
only to discover its true identity as it collapsed in shreds
and as everyone who saw you stalk it breaks into laughter

when this happens
when your mistake is revealed
when what you’ve killed
renders you a buffoon before others

remember
that it does not mean
that the demon
does not in fact exist

somewhere
where you
cannot
see it

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October 19, 2013

God In The Ginger Ale

By Tony Brown

God is everywhere,
even in this ginger ale.

If an atheist
swallows God up
through a straw
without noticing,
what will end first —
the universe, God,
the atheist, or our sense
of absurdity?

The atheist will say
nothing will end,
because there was
no God in the ginger ale.
He will say this
while glowing
righteously.  

If an artist creates
great art inspired by 
what she calls “God,”
shouldn’t we burn it
or her, once God 
no longer exists?

The atheist, levitating
over the pyre
of the Sistine Chapel,
Notre Dame, the ghosts
of Baniyan’s Buddhas, 
Angkor Wat, and Rapa Nui,
chooses a Titian altar piece
to toss on the fire.  Meanwhile

God sits by — warming up,
drying up, laughing loudly.
This happens all the time.
It’s not like it changes anything.

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September 25, 2013

Bo Diddley Halleujah

By Tony Brown

My beaver heart
drums and pumps as I 
tear up and reform
my environment.

All I want 
is to leave a mark.
Something to say
something, anything

about anything.
I don’t care if
that urge makes my 
ass look big or 

my name look small,
so small it’s not
remembered — although
to have been Bo Diddley

and have left a rhythm
behind me that conjures my name
whenever it’s played?  
Praise, hallelujah — two bits.

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September 25, 2013

The Proper Perspective

By Tony Brown

Love’s not much
to worry about: you either
have it or don’t, are loved or
are not.  Simple

and devastating.
You can’t worry about such things
to the point of no return; instead,
worry till just before that point.

Say there’s a pair of brown eyes
that wreck you often.
Why worry
about wrecking — you will

or will not crash,
they’ll turn your way
or stay fixed
elsewhere,

and there’s nothing you can do
except think about them until
just before you see
the bridge abutment looming.

Love’s neither voluntary
nor subject to reason, so
to sit with your head in your hands,
utterly controlled by love, is foolish.

Just rest your head
directly on your desk
and save your arms from fatigue.
Rest it there repeatedly, in fact,

several times a minute.
It will hurt less than worrying
about love.  You’ll see — eventually
you’ll pass out and love

will fall into its proper perspective
of blackout and pain
and the dazed look on your face
upon revival, at which point

you may still be worried about love
but no one will be the wiser —
and maybe, just maybe,
you’ll have amnesia.

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