Tag Archives: poems

May 8, 2015

How To Survive

You ask me
how I move in this
darkening world. You ask,
how do I pull through,
get by, survive?

I move as sandstorm:
darkness rising
in full light;

swiftly, bearing
both seen and unseen grit;
enveloping homes, work; in fact,
swallowing all journeys
and destinations. I pull through

while afire: consumed
by red. Eaten by red.
Red in windows, eyes,
on the tongue. Get by as flood:

poured out, soaking in,
flowing as though
a wound had been torn
in the silky, silver gut
of All.

Survival:
I’ve had to be
so present
with survival

that I’ve had no time
to measure the past of it,
or to think about the future of it.
If I could, I would tell you.
I would tell everyone,
as it seems
that only some know.

If I knew
and if I could share
what I knew,
perhaps I could
save some of them.

I survive, I think,
mostly by realizing
from second to second that,
until this moment at least,
I actually have.

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

May 8, 2015

The Grandmothers

By Tony Brown

Around the bed
where I lie
and try to sleep
stand generations
of grandmothers,
soft gray owls speaking to me
in all my native tongues at once,
and I understand none of it.

My shame at being unable
to take what they offer
grows a snow storm,
a white-out inside me.

How dangerous my dreams are —
so dangerous I strive to convince myself
that they are nothing, that the fantastic
does not exist,

that the grandmother owls
crowding close,
hooting softly,
calling out to me,

are wind in the trees
and no more.

3 Comments | tags: heritage, meditations, poems, poetry, race | posted in poetry

May 6, 2015

Left And Left And Right (Family Home)

By Tony Brown

Originally posted 3/1/2010.

Left at the top of the stairs
and then another left
and then a right
takes me into the blue room
I lived in through junior and senior high,
the room I drywalled
and painted for myself
with my father’s help.

I chose the color
and the now-embarrassing
blue shag rug.
(Blue was my favorite color then.)

I laid the oak floors
that lie beneath the carpet —
nailing through the tongues
of the narrow planks,
fitting the grooves to them,
beautiful unstained wood I covered
with blue shag carpet.

I chose these red and blue plaid curtains.
Dirty as hell, limp with fade and dust.
No one’s vacuumed since I left.
I just found a cannabis seed
in the rug under the side window
where I’d smoke late at night
from a homemade pipe
I made from an old steam radiator valve.

I had an FM radio then
that taught me how to hear
Mickey and Sylvia played
after Rashaan Roland Kirk
and I tried to stop thinking the world
was rigid and orderly.

One time I broke up with someone
and dropped acid late that night
and stared at my squirming self
in the mirror for a long time.
Afterward I took a piece of paper
from a spiral bound notebook
and wrote a whole story
that sounded pretty much

like this one.

If I lived here now
I’d tear up this rug.
If the oak still looked good
I’d sand and stain and polish it;
I’d change the curtains and
I’d certainly have to paint —
not blue this time,

or at least a different blue.

When I was done I’d play
the modern, stale radio,
smoke a big joint in plain view of the windows,
sit there and think about
Rashaan Roland Kirk
having the blues and one working arm and no sight.
Dig up a hazed memory of
“Rip, Rig, And Panic.” Then
I’d imagine him singing
“Love Will Make You Fail In School.”
That’s still true. It really will.
I can vouch for that
even if I can’t remember
more than that. Thank God

I’ll never have to do all that —
move back here
into this room
and cobble together
a new life
with the blue
and the dirt
and the leftovers. After all
you can’t go home again
when you never really left

and it never really felt like home to begin with.

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

May 6, 2015

How To Fly

By Tony Brown

She is
the leading edge and

he removes himself
from her wake

not from jealousy
or anger but to honor

how far ahead she is. She needs
no drag upon her and

it’s not important, he tells himself,
if I cannot move on alone.

It’s not important that I am alone and behind her
as she moves on ahead and alone.

He says this out loud
without knowing he’s spoken.

Says it out loud,
a strong wind behind those words.

Says out loud something
not easily pried from him;

feels lighter at once,
blown along, carried along, lifted.

Out on the leading edge,
she feels not the slightest

of any of this. Unaffected,
unfamiliar

with such turmoil – and
why should she be? She

already knows
how to fly.

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

May 5, 2015

How I Fight

By Tony Brown

If I am,
then I am.

You say, that’s ridiculous,
it need not be said,
is obvious.

You say it makes no sense but
except to say it
is to force the issue:
when you say
I am not
in all the ways you say it,
I must say
I am. Must present evidence,
offer proof. No matter how tired I am,
no matter how weary I am
of having to say it.

So —
because I am, I am;
because negation
of such a thing
is
evil,

in spite of how unfashionable
that word is now, in spite of
how hard we try
to find other ways to say it —
I say it. I say it because

my insistence upon saying
I am

is how I fight
evil.

Is how I fight Evil.

Is how
I fight, how
we all fight.

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

May 5, 2015

For The Next Guy

By Tony Brown

one day
when I’m dying
I’ll say, long live
liberation. I’ll say,
it’s good to relax.

one day
I’ll realize in a flash
I’ll never
step to the stagefront
bearing a flaming Gibson
and play a solo like something
Robert Johnson forgot to offer
and Jimi left out of his will — I’ve got it
in my head even now —
but it will never happen.

when that happens
I’ll say,

that’s enough, micro-
man, little
squeeze of flesh, tiny handed
mollycoddled
dumbass refusal to bend —

and in response I hope
the world will say
it’s OK, Tony,
we know it was all you’ve got.
if after all this struggle
you have anything left in your bag
it’s probably lint
and there’s already enough of that
to go around.

shuffle off, now. don’t forget
to put that guitar back on the stand

for the next guy.

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

May 3, 2015

Nuggets

By Tony Brown

Originally posted 1/7/2006.

1.
i was 15
a man grabbed me from behind
i turned and cut him
did not stop to see what happened
ran as fast as i could back to the party

two friends helped me
scrub off the blood
someone else
lent me a shirt

i went home that night
my parents never knew
i have watched the news for years
still don’t know what happened

why nothing has ever happened

2.
she was really pretty and
if i could have recalled her name
i would have called her

i am still trying

3.
at 17 i stole a book of robert bly’s poetry
and later had him sign it
this was wrong in so many ways

i still have the book

4.
i should have called her
i should have called her
i should have called her
who was she

who am i that i thought i could call her

5.
i should have hit him
i should not have hit him
i’m glad i hit him

i should never have pulled my knife
i am glad i pulled my knife

years later i saw the one
i should not have pulled the knife on
in a club

he backed away from me
both hands raised

it felt good

you’re the indian, right
he said

it felt good

something like that
i said

i like indians, he said

i stepped toward him
he fled
it felt good

5.
there is only so much of yourself you can handle
before you have to start dividing and conquering

i will own this
but i will not own that

but i am this because
i was that
and was not that

you don’t really know me
and you never will

i know me
but not all of me
and not all at once

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

May 1, 2015

Ein Jeder Engel Ist Schrecklich

By Tony Brown

Originally posted 5/17/2009.

Ein Jeder Engel Ist Schrecklich (Every angel is terrifying). — Rilke

Close a door, open a door,
write a letter, burn a letter:
endings are as easy as beginnings
when there’s little potency attached.
What makes it hard to end or begin
is the Angel of Possibility who hovers
on the margin of each decision.

I know much of her scarred wings
and fruit-toned breath. Each time
I have flown with her
I have been scared of the height
from which I might fall;

tonight she floats
at the edge of vision,
near the door, beckoning to me
as I pray for my feet
to remain on the ground —

yet she is an Angel,
after all, and I begin
to rise, attended by
all the terror
I can bear.

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

April 30, 2015

Political Art

By Tony Brown

Old poem. Reposted tonight just because it felt right, in this moment, to think again about the limits of political art — dates back at least to 1999, 2000? Appears here in the “Poems From The Slam Years” page. Has also appeared in various anthologies over the years, and various journals as well.

a print of “Guernica” hangs on the foyer wall
above the drink table
here are the famous horse and the upraised human face
they’re screaming as the hors d’oeuvres are passed

and on the facing wall
behind the buffet
hang two photographs
carefully chosen for tonight

in this one is a girl we have seen before
running and burning on a road in Vietnam years and years ago
back then she was trying to fly to safety
on the innocent strength rising along her fiery arms

in this one is a man we’ve also seen before
and despite his death in 1890 he also keeps trying
but he’s frozen awkward and insolent in his attempt
to rise from the snow at Wounded Knee

we are making small talk tonight
clicking our tongues at all these pictures
making crestfallen small talk
because we know we should

handing over money
to save Afghani statues from the guns of rapists
handing over fistfuls of green guilt
for the anesthetic of aesthetics

buying permission to posture unflinching
before those who have fallen
permission to shelter in these picturesque memorials
in the hope of receiving from them some kind of prophylactic grace

as we stare at the burning girl
as we sadly regret Wounded Knee and genocide
as we admire the abstraction of that burning Spanish town
we will click our tongues

while marking the skill of the artist at having those faces
seem so stark in their angled black and white
seem so shot through and through
with an undertone of subconscious red

it’s from this we’ve learned how to watch the news
the news that gives us each day our daily dread
a new crop of victims to be cropped and photoshopped
and we know just what to do when we see the faces

we observe
we regret
we remark
we move on

tonight there’s a gallery fundraiser
tomorrow there will be another
we’ll see the burning girl and the rising corpse again
and we’ll make another print of “Guernica”

why
do we need to keep making
all these prints
of “Guernica”?

someday we’ll see
that if we had been changed by all this art
at the first hint of genocide we would smash our cameras
hang our paintbrushes back on the wall

stick our checkbooks back in our pockets
lift the paintings from their frames
and carry them through the streets
to the places of power calling why

why

if the people inside our work could speak
they would tell us that if witness alone could change the world
the world would be changed by now
and we would have no need to keep learning

that this picture
of that girl
is not
beautiful

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

April 30, 2015

Pursuit Of

By Tony Brown

The sun’s hot. Too hot.
The water’s wet but it’s getting scarce
and the dirt’s becoming precious around our feet.
We look at our kids and say,
don’t get cocky about the pursuit of happiness
being easy. Get a job and keep looking.
Pass a test and get a job and keep looking. Kick a ball
and pass a test and keep looking. Do it all —
go to school kick a ball pass a test get a job
kick a tire
and a man
and a woman
and a queer hide
and a brown hide
and don’t forget that Jesus, he kicked a lot of ass,
so I’ve heard, so we’ve all been told.
Keep looking, kick something that’s already down
and it’ll almost feel like you stumbled over happiness
in the dry weeds that are taking back our lawns.
Keep at it. It has to be here. Someone must have it and
it’s ours, damn it. We’ve got the paper
that says so. We’ve got the muscle. Dislocated
as the bones may be under our good skin,
we’ve still got the muscle and the guns. Rubble
piling up? That’s just good cover
for a sniper. Don’t get comfortable, kid.
You want it you have to hunt it.
You’re going to have to take aim
at the fucks who stole it.
Go get ’em, kid.
Go get ’em.

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

April 29, 2015

Mixed

By Tony Brown

Sometimes,
I am ashamed
of my face,
of what it does not look like.

I am ashamed of the way
light bends across it
and of how it glows less bronze
than it might have
if certain twists of gene and fate
had gone another way.

I had former family and former friends
who often said, “you’re lucky
you’re like this, like this, how
can you not like this?” They speak

of privileges and passing and
presentation — how easy, they say,
how much easier;
some say the presentation
is all that counts.

All the while I am beyond mere
sadness, beyond shame.
It’s not those things
I’m feeling.

I can’t tell you
what I’m feeling.
I can’t say the words
because this nation
and this era
disallow those words.

I can’t say I am different
and feel different and
am not allowed to say
how this is different;

instead I am said to be
and told to feel
lucky or false
or lucky and false.

What I truly want
is a face with which
to face the issues. To face
my issues. A face to match the face
I daily face inside,
a face I can turn to
and ask about

why I feel so ashamed, and then
to ask directions toward
the country where I
can feel good.

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

April 28, 2015

362 Miles

By Tony Brown

Woke up to sun
and no smoke.
Birds prattling on,
two daffodils finally up and shining
from our front walk mulch.
Nice place, this. Nice place.

No smoke
for miles around. No fire

not currently under control.
This is not to say that
there’s nothing smoldering here,
or that we’re not so far from Baltimore
that we know nothing of burning

or why things burn.
It’s just that right now

this is a nice place,
and if we do smell smoke
it’s got to be from 362 miles away,
carried on a strong wind
from a place where

birds bloom
and flowers chirp, where everything’s

a little backwards.
If we do smell smoke here —
do we smell smoke here?
No, can’t be. We keep sniffing,

must just be
power of suggestion; well, maybe
a little something there, a little

something on that wind.

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

April 27, 2015

Shadow

By Tony Brown

Beneath

this longing
for good old
familiar
Order

runs an ancient spring of

Shadow

that is now
seeping up
into our homes and
streets

Is becoming Flood
Is drowning Order

Someday it will become
sweet water again
in full sunlight
Will drench and nourish
something New

but only after this
when it sinks back into
its own heart-bed

Till then
expect this match of

Order against Shadow

to pull some down
wash much away
kill and kill and kill

as Order struggles
to hold
its crumbling ground
before it
flails and falls away

at last

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

April 26, 2015

Scrolling Down

By Tony Brown

Originally posted 6/27/2009.

A bird with three wings
has been found in Suffolk.

Infants are born singing
in Sao Paulo.

A ghost, seen by thousands
who identify as that of a long dead rock star,
hovers just above the rush hour traffic
on the ring road around Atlanta.

In broad daylight, in Singapore,
a figure walks the streets laughing
and strumming a lute.

In Baltimore, green turns overnight
to red.

The severed arm of a Jamaican wrestler
miraculously regenerates.

A Swiss man lost for five days underwater
is found alive and breathing through a straw.

Slingshots have replaced cell phones
as the new status symbol for Japanese youth.

A Karachi flower market reopens for business with a new look
after a car previously pollinated with C-4 bears fruit.

In Kentucky, authorities report
a young boy has killed his entire family
because they were demons.

The death
of a middle aged shepherd in Andorra
is linked to
a traditional curse of the Roma.
Paris is now the world capital of sleeping sickness.
The news takes the world by surprise.

Connecting dots
on screens filled
with nothing but dots
becomes a worldwide craze
and competitive sport.

Winners will be chosen at a date to be announced.

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

April 25, 2015

When They Did Not Break Us

By Tony Brown

Originally posted 7/29/2013; originally titled “When He Broke Us.”

when they first came
they called us
both resource and nuisance
land and labor bank
in the way
ultimately good for nothing

said it was high time to break us

they set to it
our mystery belonging broke
our fluency in stone’s tongue broke
our river dreaming broke
our river beds opened
and drained themselves down
to now mute bones

we ended almost
when we couldn’t speak to each other

our children were taken from us
they returned much later looking more like Him
and had no tongue to use with us

who were we then without them?

we searched
scrapped and fought
found our old words
or made new ones
mined old life from new seams

now they’ve begun to crack
shame lines crazing faces

tried to wear our clothes
they fell off
tried to steal our names
we called them back to us

we put them back on
somewhat the worse for wear
but unbroken

when we spoke those names out loud
for the first time in a long time
in long songs full of drum and tears
the stones cried welcome back
and welcome home
and welcome once again

1 Comment | tags: heritage, poems, poetry, race, revisions | posted in poetry