Tag Archives: meditations

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.

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

June 30, 2016

Collard Greens, Hummingbirds, And Spider Silk

By Tony Brown

With my eyes lightly closed I see
a river of red circles flowing on black
from lower left to upper right.

I clamp down harder;
that river stops its purposeful flow,
begins to swirl.

I try to see detail of those circles,
or of the black behind the river,
but there’s nothing more.

Press a finger to a lid
and the river lights up
as if I was viewing

a campfire’s light
from around a bend
before coming directly upon it.

What’s the point, you ask,
of trying to see
with your eyes closed,

but also of trying
to describe it well enough
so others can see it too?

I respond, one of these days
I may come around that bend
and see that fire.

Maybe it will be a cooking fire.
Maybe there will be roasted meat,
collard greens, people

at rest around it, songs
like hummingbirds, skin
like spider silk. It would be

a good place to be,
a good place to end up,
but I’d hate to end up all alone there

so this is my way of leaving a trail
to that place you see
when your eyes are closed,

when a final finger
presses them
closed.

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

June 30, 2016

Companion

By Tony Brown

Ahead, wooded foothills.
Farther ahead, green and gray
mountains. White patches
here and there upon them — snow
this late seems unlikely

but it has been
an unlikely year. These
may be instead
well-lit patches of
odd stone recently exposed,
perhaps by rockslides.
I know so little
of mountains, though;

it’s pointless to speculate,
and now I find
a longing within
for a companion
who knows more of mountains
than I do.

I find such longing
within me often this year;
this has been an unlikeable
year and to have
someone beside me
who has seen
such years before
might keep me
from drifting too early
into those mountains.
This road I’m on
will take me there
soon enough,
take me to see
if those white stains are
slides of stone
or slides of snow,
but there’s much country
to cross before then and

to have a guide,
a shadow partner who
could say “calm, stay calm,
all will be revealed in time”
whenever I am transfixed by
dangerous considerations
of what’s coming

would make this journey
easier if not less
fraught with fear.

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

June 28, 2016

Such Things

By Tony Brown

Such things

as a neighbor’s
somber face
caught smiling
for a little longer
than the usual
ghost moment
she allows
for happiness
to haunt her
expression

or the way
a certainly ordinary
everyday unnoticed
shaft of tree-channeled
sunlight strikes
a backyard bed
of gone to seed lettuce
illuminates the pale stalks and
makes them shine
and appear
(for the first time
in a long while
since the last harvest)
quite appealing in spite of
recent neglect

Such things

are becoming
what I need
to get by

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

June 27, 2016

Under The Scar

By Tony Brown

A scar on my thumb tip
that won’t heal underneath —
current marker of my decrepit
mortality — wound whose cause
I’ve long forgotten, stone scar
pulsing intermittently
with small but constant pain
each time it comes into contact
with anything — guitar neck,
keyboard, another finger — this last
the most persistent as I worry
and rub that tiny round
into a nearly constant mini-scream —
why do I do this to myself, why don’t I
get it looked at, perhaps removed,
why do I make it hurt more and more
until the inevitable day
the scar breaks away
from the new flesh underneath —
so tender, raw, and pink — waiting
for its chance
to harden and mound up
and begin the cycle again —
as I do, as I do each time
I rise wounded from bed
these days, latter days
hard crusting over
raw sense — never
healing so much that
I can forget that it hurts —
even if I don’t know anymore
why it does.

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

June 25, 2016

Explanation #47

By Tony Brown

the number of times
i’ve been accused by others
of being absurd or out of my place
is large

the number of times
said absurdity was intended
to be absurd
is not

the number of times
i was out of my place
on purpose
is also not

i was
simply
being me
and

my absurdity
was simply
a way of
adjusting

to what felt
to that out of place me
like an absurd situation
see

where i stand is usually
a little to the left of
the frame and cocking my head
is just trying to see things

the accepted way
anything coming from
my tilted mouth
that spills wrong

doesn’t have
much of a chance
of landing well
for Them

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

June 24, 2016

Trolls

By Tony Brown

They think of themselves
as mere campaigners
in a big, big war.

They inflame
wherever they sit. Ignition’s
a self-granted wish.

They have hands full of triggers,
are willing to pull them
to get their way.

They opened up this casket
and now they’re going
to have to lie in it.

They didn’t see that coming.
They never see it coming; it’s why
they never go away.

Look at how scorched the earth is
everywhere they’ve been. You’d think
they’d be longing to chill by now

after all this burning,
but not them, never them.
They dig the heat out of Hell,

swing it around,
then blame the fuel
for turning to ash, blame the burned

for being burned, blame the fire
for burning the burned and
the fuel. Then they

whistle their innocence,
and look for someone to hand them
another match.

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

June 23, 2016

Walls Of Bones And Blood

By Tony Brown

Until you are by law under suspicion
for your face, do not speak too proudly
of the need to obey any other law.

Until you are by law under threat
of becoming slave or slain for walking
your path your way, do not claim

that if you are doing nothing wrong,
you have nothing to worry about. This
is not a tale of unlawful doing, but one of

unlawful being; unless you have lived
where you are always at war, or where war
always simmers just under boiling, do not speak

so confidently of the need for restraint,
do not sternly scold broken windows
in a landscape where everyone’s a casualty

by definition. If you live where that
is not the case, you likely live
in a fortress made of bones cemented with blood

and unless you can see your own bones and blood
in those walls, don’t scorn those who are sick
of seeing their entire past, present, and future there,

and who then attempt to tear it all down.

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

June 20, 2016

A Lie

By Tony Brown

A lie is a lie is a lie.

Long chains hold us
to our pasts. We claim
to have cracked their locks
and are now free of them, but
a lie is a lie is a lie;

we give our faith to
such talk, choose not to hear
those who still bear the weight
we claim to have thrown off;
it’s clear that we are not fooled
but are in thrall to our lies,
and a lie is a lie is a lie;

our lies form a base on which we build
those truths which may in fact be true
in the small scope of our own small lives
but which are bitter jokes in the lives
of those whose backs hold us up; a lie

is a lie is a lie. We lie with our lies
when we sleep safe and sound
in our safe beds; to lie
in those beds is to lie in and on
a bed of lies and what is safe,
what is sound, what is
a sound sleep

when each breath we take in sleep
is matched by those whose breaths
are long since — and even now —
cut off, choked off, stopped
by blood in the throat? How is it
that we do not dream of blood
come to drown us
when we lie down
when our lie is a truth for some
and not all?
If it is a lie for some
it is still a lie,
is all a lie,

and it’s no lie to say it kills.

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

June 20, 2016

The Chastisement Of Christopher Eggplant

By Tony Brown

Christopher Eggplant — so called because he always seems tightly skinned and shiny, and because in the right light when showing his usual level of vague expansive derision at all things not Christopher appears also somewhat purple in flesh tone — Christopher Eggplant may have just given his final lip to a dangerous man; as usual not knowing when to apply the brake to his wit, he has decided to tease a large and surly pale laborer at the next door construction site, a man who having finished work for the day is sitting in his silver Buick with the door open chugging a tall Colt 45 and loudly singing the hook of a popular song in a surprisingly thin and pitchy tenor voice; to which apparent provocation Christopher Eggplant has responded by calling out to the man his sarcastic appreciation of the tune, calling him by a brutal parody of the name of the heart-throb who has made it a hit; the man’s comrades upon the job are starting to trot from their own cars and drinking spots toward Christopher Eggplant even as his target rises himself from the Buick no longer singing but with a strange blank look upon him, almost as if he has become some kind of machine, almost as if there’s something inside him that has turned off any sense of irritation, almost a contrast — although more of a goad — to those who are approaching with anger on his behalf, or fear for Christopher Eggplant as they seem to know that something deeply awful is about to happen, something that only the most depraved among us would be so excited to observe, and as I am excited to observe from a distance I feel thus depraved but will not lift my own finger to help Christopher Eggplant as none of us who know him from the neighborhood will, as time slows to a crawl, as the danger surrounds him, as we take a deep and uneasy satisfaction after taking years of his abuse at the prospect of watching him fall so awfully, so wetly, to the infertile ground.

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