Tag Archives: poems

November 17, 2016

Wreck

By Tony Brown

Thump. Thump. Thump.
Flat tire morning in November.
Harder and harder to steer.
Someone ought to fix it.
There will be a wreck otherwise.
Pull. Pull. Pull.
Steering wheel starting to pull hard right.
That guardrail will be impotent against this momentum.
Embankment beyond it and dirty creek at the bottom.
Lots of trees between but nothing large enough to break a plunge.
Dirty. Dirty. Dirty.
A promise of more than scratch and dent.
Forget about salvage if that happens.
Have to climb up and out if it lands in toxic muck.
Leave it behind smashed beyond repair to leak more poisons.
Shake. Shake. Shake.
Standing cold and smeared with blood and more.
Standing dark on a highway shoulder.
Shaking alive but trembling toward less so.
No one to tell or beg for help.
Lights far away seem to be aimed here.
Whatever is next comes rough and unsteady.

Thump. 

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November 15, 2016

American Appetite Parable

By Tony Brown

How do you eat an elephant?
One bite at a time.

It helps to have
gigantic teeth.

Of course, if possible
you kill it first.

But if you’re big enough,
perhaps you needn’t. 

Does that sound awful?
It is awful.  There’s no way around that.

But honestly, you might have to eat it
while it’s still alive.

While you’re thinking about that,
consider how you’ll stop it from moving

long enough to get those bites in.
No matter how large your teeth, 

you can’t eat it while it runs.
You’re going to have to stop it

from running.  Bring it
to at least a crawl so you can

get a leg up on it
and open your mouth.

Also, can you make that first bite
count toward the slowdown and stopping?

Think on these things, but not 
for too long.  It’s charging

and it’s huge. Tremendous, 
really. But remember, 

it’s made of meat. Aren’t you hungry? 
Hungry enough to at least try?

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November 15, 2016

American Oatmeal Parable

By Tony Brown

Forced to eat oatmeal each day
by my addled blood.  
Gotten so used to it
that a day without it feels like treason.

Once upon a time I liked it well enough. Still
sounds good right up to the first bite —  
a blues bowl of blueberries and cinnamon,
tan pulp gone purple with berry dye. Then

it becomes all bent notes until “good-for-me,
good-for-me, good-for-me” stops echoing inside
as I put empty spoon and bowl into the sink
with that sense of weary duty to a life I truly don’t love,

followed by seeking out morning news. Upon seeing it 
my addled blood so often becomes curdled blood;
all that weary duty feels heavier, and heavier, 
a weight in my stomach as dense as the cursed daily bowl —

but every day I force it down. I do what must be done,
take in boredom and pain and anger because
as much as it hurts, I must stay alive a bit longer;
because “good-to-me” means more than just feeling good;

it’s about doing what must be done 
to save my blood, my country, my life.
Whatever I choke down I choke down to do just that.
Gotten so used to it that a day without it

feels like treason.

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November 14, 2016

Not All Things

By Tony Brown

Not all things 
said by poets
are poems.  

We order
pizzas, wings,
beer.  We pray

stale prayers that
barely pulse with
longing, rage

impotently, curse
in traffic. Those words
aren’t poems,

though we may be bent
toward seasoning them
as if they were.  All

the more reason
for the few poems
we do get to write

to be full of us
at our best.
It simply will not do

for us to fail. Those
fluent curses and
florid grocery lists

should prepare us
for those times when
the breath we spend 

might be a last breath.

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November 13, 2016

American Stew Parable

By Tony Brown

Just like that,
there were so many bones
in the stew that 
it became a chore to eat.
We choked and sucked around them
but were only made more hungry
by the effort needed
to feed.

Slowly, we gained confidence;
bit down, chewed through,

and learned from that
that inside each bone
was a center as full of flavor
as any of the softer meat;

while the work became
no easier, in the end
we were stronger and less inclined
to treat ease 
as a birthright worth its taste.

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November 12, 2016

American Vegetable Parable

By Tony Brown

many of you
have just learned
that we live in an onion

which once peeled splits
fairly easily and reeks
and makes you weep

but have yet
to learn another thing
long known to many

that if you wash your hands with
stainless steel right away
and dry yourself up

you stop weeping and
then can get back to work
making something

PS

you will of course
still have to do
some chopping

but there are many people
who can explain that to you
if you are willing to learn

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November 11, 2016

Le Refus Absurde

By Tony Brown

While reading and fantasizing
about the French Resistance
before dawn,

I come across the term
“le Refus Absurde,” used to describe
those actions early

in the Nazi occupation when,
even though it seemed certain that
the Reich would triumph and

last a thousand years, individuals
would begin to resist even though
they felt the effort was futile. They’d

slash a tire, cut a cable, write
a subversive poem, start 
an underground newspaper.  Armed

resistance only came later…Many
spoke of moments when le Refus Absurde
crystallized within them, climaxes

of incipient struggle; for some it was seeing friends
beaten or marched away, for others
the look of contempt on the faces

of German soldiers as they marched
into towns like a swarm
of sneering Twitter comments.

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November 10, 2016

The Unlimited Light Of Song

By Tony Brown

Waiting in fear
in this sudden,
moonless dark.

Lying alone all across
the country, some scattered 
face down upon stone;  

some of us clawing alone
at barn-board floors, 
gasping for air;

others huddled 
in city doorways,
watching our homes burn,

watching
everything beloved 
burn.

Tonight the fight
is at the door
and not of our making.

Tonight we fight back their way,
by the glowing rage
of uncounted flames.

But tomorrow?
Tomorrow, we fight our way,
illuminated

by the unlimited
light of
song.

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November 8, 2016

Rhetoric

By Tony Brown

1.
Get out and vote
you anti American
Get out and vote
you racist bastard
Get out and vote 
you gun stealing liberal
Get out and vote
you rich little shitcake
Get out and vote
you uninformed minion
Get out and vote
you infowarrior
Get out and vote
you Christ-chanting dupe
Get out and vote
you Allah-loving Monster
Get out and vote
you atheist dog
Get out and vote
you pole-dancing street mom
Get out and vote
you staid little dingbat
Get out and vote
you celebrity annoyance
Get out and vote
you decent confusion
Get out and vote
you best intention 
Get out and vote
you came here to do this
Get out and vote
you were born here to do this
Get out and vote
you have blood on the ground
Get out and vote
you want oil in the ground
Get out and vote
you are shamed into caring
Get out and vote
you are a shame to the flag
Get out and vote
you are a shame to your mothers
Get out and vote
you are a scandal to your fathers
Get out and vote
you are an infinite number

an infinite number

a number

number

numb

2.
On a treeless plain in North Dakota
rubber bullets are voting
for stasis

On a street yet to be named in any given city
police bullets are voting
for stasis

In any prison in any given state
forced labor is voting
for stasis

On the New York Stock Exchange
the currency is voting
for stasis

3.
Get out
and vote

It gives you
something to do

Gives you
a place to stand

Gives them
stasis

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November 7, 2016

Wisdom Path

By Tony Brown

Originally posted 11/3/2012.  

When apocalypse comes,
it will come slowly.
God will not have sent it.  

It won’t have been sent at all.
It will just come of its own accord
on its own wisdom path.  

If asked, it will say, “I came to be here
because this path that opened before me
brought me here.”

The mountains at the edge of town 
will nod,
almost too slowly to notice.

The long hair of meadows 
will wave in assent. The rest of earth
will agree with it at once.  

Then, as it serenely kills us,
we will be forced to accept
the expertise that pushed for this — 

Wisdom itself seems bent
on using catastrophe to instruct
as we seem unable to learn

that we are not
and have never been
at the end of that path.

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November 7, 2016

Leaf By Leaf

By Tony Brown

Election eve,
and leaf by leaf
it’s all coming down
outside. Next door
they’re raking leaves
into piles before
putting them
into the street for
collection, with a scratch
upon scratch of
metal teeth on 
worn asphalt and hard 
brush of the same
sweeping over
thin lawn: sounds
of ending and
of resignation to 
the hard work of 
coming winter. 

As for me, laboring
over a difficult task
indoors, stopping
to finish this poem 
surreptitiously, as if
someone was 
hovering over my shoulder?
I heard somewhere
that raking is bad
for the lawn and 
right or wrong, that suits me
fine. Permission to keep my head
in the sand of this work
a little longer. Living
according to
acceptable facts. Winter’s 
looming, getting here
maybe as early
as tomorrow night. I
will stay right here
for as long as I can
and do nothing urgently
needed, except 
perhaps this poem
is what is needed,
I tell myself
this is the most vital work
of the moment
even as we are buried,
leaf by leaf,
in the Fall.

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November 7, 2016

Sunset

By Tony Brown

If I had
disappeared
years before today

into the hard
landscape of 
my greatest longing

and ended up as
anonymous bones
scattered along an arroyo

I would still be
better off than 
I am now. 

You don’t see
how that could be
possible. From within

your deep love
of life you
cannot see 

how such a blotting out
could be
desirable.

Look at the sunset,
which will be over
soon.  Look at

the way it reds
and then purple-grays
the west-facing slopes,

then think of 
never seeing it again
except in memory:

think of how
lovely it was and
of how its beauty

only existed
as a result of
its vanishing.

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November 6, 2016

An Odd Occurrence

By Tony Brown

If any miracle
happens in this room
I will surely witness it
as I rarely leave
this room.
In fact, if any
odd occurrence 
at all stirs here
I’ll certainly see it.

Now, if I leave this room,
that will be
an odd occurrence.
If I leave this room,
I will myself become
an odd occurrence
in whatever room I enter.
If I become
an odd occurrence
I hope I can see myself
outside of this room.

I think about these things
so you won’t have to.
I stay in this room and think
of odd occurrences
and then write about them
so you can read what I wrote and say

how odd.  
What an odd character he is.
It’s a miracle that anyone
could think that way.  It’s not
as good as walking on water
but it’s a little like
raising life out of death.

I suppose that comes
from how he stays
in that room. I couldn’t do it.
It takes a special sort
of oddity to do that, I think.
I’m glad someone does it
but I couldn’t.

From my room,
so sticky thick
with oddity,
I can hear you out there
discussing me.
I can hear you out there.

It doesn’t make me
eager to leave
this room.

It doesn’t
make me eager for
anything out there.

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November 5, 2016

The Rogue Effort

By Tony Brown

At the moment we realize
that we’ve been in 
the apocalypse 
for a while, 

we learn
as well
not to speak of it
to others

who may not
yet know
that this is
where we are

so as not to create
a general panic:
instead, it is revealed
to each of us

in exacting detail
so deep as to be 
unshakably true, 
and as we begin

to tremble 
at the impending
End, it becomes clear
to us that we must tremble

alone. Now and then 
we may see the eyes
of another who knows
and nod or perhaps

brush against
each other
in a crowd —
rogue effort

at sympathy,
comfort
in a swift
glancing touch —

then, we return
to the seemingly endless
beginning of the lonely
end. No fire, no pestilence,

no storm or epic war
in this: only the slow
madness of not being able
to share it for long with anyone.

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November 5, 2016

Listening To The Proletariat (Events Repeat)

By Tony Brown

Saw a reunited punk band last night

they did an old song called voodoo economics
a bootstrap trickle down call-out
and it didn’t sound dated

they did a new song called scab 
about a liar snake class traitor
and it didn’t sound new

it was a band called The Proletariat
and I wondered how many in the crowd
knew what that means

before them was another old punk crew
called Neutral Nation
they did a song called apathy

lead singer said
you better not be apathetic
this coming election day

nobody responded

some people say
the greatest thing that ever happened
to American punk
was Ronald Reagan

The Proletariat have a song
called Options

bend my ear
twist my arm

show me the options

options
options

still looking for options
but while I’m waiting let me say
I’ve missed this
even though I’m afraid its time
has come to pass again
has slouched around again

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