Tag: poem

2019, Year Of…

~ johnbrandall

Year of the dumpster, beached on the street like a malevolent whale.  Year of the winking stop sign, of constantly yellow lights. 2019, year of the home run, of rain, of record heat, of polar vortex.  Year of the tweetstorm. Of walls and rejections. Year of running water, of family, of learning another language, of learning how not to take things for granted.  Year of choking to death on vomit in a hotel room, year of death of talent by suicide.

Year of unchecked mergers. Year of the podcast, of restaurants closing, of buildings that will be empty until they collapse. Year of body rags cut from old clothes, of rubbing alcohol, of witch hazel.  Year of CBD. Of bird versus bunny, year of more and more mass shootings and no one doing anything about it.

Year of groggy mornings, of bags under my eyes, of sleeping by myself, of writing poems, of hiding.  Year of swimming laps, of AirBnB, of appreciating a picnic table in the shade in the park. Year of compound interest, of Jupiter and Scorpius, of the opossum, of the narwhal tusk, of the whip-poor-will's song.  Year of playing tennis again with my brother. Year of cuñado, year of farmer’s markets. Year of next year, if I’m lucky, again...

To continue with 2019...

Encounter with an Iberian Woodrat

~ johnbrandall

Like the jigsaw puzzle suddenly nearing completion the pile was virtually gone. I had used the tarp to drag the piled debris to a new bonfire-to-be in the pasture. After the pile down below went up so easily yesterday afternoon I figured we could easily get this pile ablaze before dark.

The locust limbs split and hauled away, the thorny vines extirpated and lofted onto the pile, the only element of debris remaining where the brush pile once sat was a collection of tree detritus: twigs, leaves, the maroon pods of the honey locust. It was a curious collection, somewhat familiar-looking. I was grabbing at this melange with gloved hands and tossing some of it on the tarp to be hauled away. Doing this I stepped into a depression, wide but shallow. I started to get an inkling that I was disturbing a nest...


The full account is available here...

The Only Bluff in Iberia

~ johnbrandall

Farm Party prep gone awry

Rain,
Light rain tonight,
Missouri farm.
After the neighbors have helped,
After they have asked after us
Who are growing up here
Six days a year.

Mice droppings on divan.
Recluse on back porch, ghost-brown.
Dust and dauber carcasse.
Somehow the lights still work.
Weeds, stickers, tag-alongs.
Jimson weed and bramble...

Full poem...

Sonata With Pines

~ johnbrandall

...What follows is my translation—a flawed translation—of part of a Pablo Neruda poem...

1.

We do the tired math of eggs
in the land between the lands.

We don't remember their happiness,
we forget their dentures.

They sleep the sugared sleep
on extrapolated divans.

That they would know certain stones,
carrying light and secrets,
bearing a greenish hue.

2.

What is the reason not to exist?
Where are we carrying ourselves to, otherwise?

A good change of clothes
and shoes and socks of work

Introduce a little land
to give our love new kisses.

Drink up the clean air
from now until you rule.

3.

When I went from broom to broom
guided only by my hat

I didn't find anyone who knew the way.
They were all worried.

They were trying to sell things
no one had ever asked for

until it was clear
that we'd played out our sunrise.

4.

And half the sky, the whole ramp
conformed to the song.

And spoke with all the people,
even with those who were picketing.

We forgot how quickly
our teeth lost their enamel.

We forgot about our fevers,
our slew of minor ailments.

We had a newfound prowess
as we turned our mother's earth.

Tijuana Exodus & Old Tricks in San Diego

~ johnbrandall ~ 1 Comment

13:04. I'm in my room, 1415, at the Westin San Diego. This is two hours in the room I didn't think I'd have. Because check-in isn't until three o'clock. I'm grateful.

I've looked at myself in the mirror. I look rough! My cheeks are approaching brick red, or burgundy. I stink!

First order of business is a full-on shower. Then some walkin' around, looking perhaps for a notebook store. Then I'm going to that burrito place I went to a year ago. I'm-a get two burritos, one for this afternoon, one for dinner...


Continue with this short travel essay...

The Opposite of a Black Hole is a Big Bang

~ johnbrandall

The beginning of the end of
The last history. This side
Of a black hole, a big bang, the
Epicenter, the mother lode, the lode star.
A star that leads, especially the
Polestar, the North Star of the Universe,
What is always in the center, 'lode' meaning
'The way,' the journey, the journey star.
From here to there, back from
Where we used to exist, via intergalactic canal,
Rowing upstream, rowing home,
Going back in time, into the place we
Go when we dream, time there
Suspended, fact there garbled and twisted.
It is all very real but also
Very far away, as if
It never even happened.

The Splits

~ johnbrandall

Mine was a young silence
Hers was an old knock on the door

We had a neon floor
The roof was made of islands

An old stink bug lay on the mantle
Innocuous as risotto,
A thank you note
Time-stamped in the mail

With three green birds
She welcomed me back
To where we were going

Next song, seven flowers
Best seat, eight whales

Why did I even care
About the risotto,
The order of things,
Whether the rice was al dente?

I'd love to get that angst back
I'd love to begin again in an empty dish

As if I could blow into my hand
To remove the nothing
That was already there

Nerves, River, Night

~ johnbrandall

Awake again at an off hour, at
an odd hour, now for several days
on end. Times like 3:13, 3:23, 3:34.
Some combination of threes
after bad dreams.

I'm not going to journal the dreams,
it's stupid stuff, scare tactics
drummed up by me, designed
to rattle me the most. Strangers yelling
through the window. Me fleeing
to the attic above my attic.

My nerves seem to have risen
with the humidity, with the
overnight lows. They are rising
with the river itself.

When it gets like this, the
river cannot drain. It cannot
get downstream fast enough.
So it camps out in the yard or
suns itself in the kitchen sink.

To settle myself
I go to make a drink
but when I reach into the freezer
I find the river lurking there—
vital cubes
of dirty ice.

From Cabin to Cave

~ johnbrandall

Greer Spring, Oregon County, MO. Photo courtesy Anne-Marie Vaughan.
Greer Spring, Oregon County, MO. Photo courtesy Anne-Marie Vaughan.

And then this
A spring, the water
feeding on air

I thought,
Let the world be replenished
But, no, the world
replenishes itself

Loud current, green leaf
The fallen log
be runneth over
until rock:

Nature smoothes its future,
becomes hard as a fossil
in the tumbling flow

We are warned.

A funnel, an umbrella
The reverse of an umbrella

The force washes me now
downriver, everything
important
left behind
and I cannot
go back
to get it