Do you know how your head is a mumble of thought
and the devil pushes its way to the front of the line?
No, not that devil.
Hell is frigid temperatures and gonorrhea,
everything plaid and self-compacted,
your worst pet peeve sitting in the desk to your left
and someone very disturbed angry at your right.
You are, after all, a pet peeve too.
So where is the geography for heaven?
In the room where the suicide bomber rapes his virgins?
The home of fundamentalists unable to identify gray?
Nothing smells worse than a hospital corridor.
They tell me how jail cells cleanse the soul,
How hard nipples of silicon implanted breasts have a quality of egg yolk,
The sky a burden of sweat and peroxide,
How window casements shake with a current in rain.
I am a lonely old man who cannot remember the past—
Yet I know the honey locust has thorns sharp enough to break skin
And fruit from the persimmon tree will stop an eye from twitching.
How much of anything is true enough?
I raise my hands high over my head and bend back my neck.
Muscles pull at my calves and force my feet to their toes.
Punishment is always harder on the one punishing,
The crime between her legs is silk and rose blossoms and the soft fabric of terrycloth.
They explain the way an accident can happen and how something done on purpose can be an accident, too.
Rain washes away stains, bad breath, easy smells sweet as sweet oil easing the tension of mucous caught in the ear.
They tell me how the autistic distinguish darkness from danger, how the whole distinguish a blemish from a scar.
When morning comes, they will tell me more secrets.
They will allow the rain to continue to fall.
Some of them will not be able to look me in the eyes.
I can tell them how silicon implants are like rocks behind felt.
I can tell them how missiles are made of flesh
I might even explain the motion necessary to break through the initial skin between legs.
Rain holds magic. Alone, it offers me a chance to sleep.
Disappear into the dungeon.
There's not enough of me to write a book.
Too many parts have gone missing.
Please hold onto this rook.
I can't say I'm sorry. Nor am I concerned.
Would it have been better to live
Another time? I count my worth.
How much more must I give?
You know the truth and all it contains.
Little of self ever remains. I don't know—
How can I be—knight, cowboy, formalist?
Can you not dance, can you not sing? Go.
We always wait, we always watch, we always
Jump through hoops and after awhile,
All the work that is done is done. Everything else?
A silence in the hills. I lost my tooth and still I smile.
Michael H. Brownstein has been widely published throughout the small and literary presses. His work has appeared in The Café Review, American Letters and Commentary, Skidrow Penthouse, Xavier Review, Hotel Amerika, After Hours, Free Lunch, Meridian Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, The Pacific Review and others. In addition, he has eight poetry chapbooks including The Shooting Gallery (Samidat Press, 1987), Poems from the Body Bag (Ommation Press, 1988), A Period of Trees (Snark Press, 2004) and What Stone Is (Fractal Edge Press, 2005).
Comments (closed)
lorraine gradwell
2011-03-29 04:53:59
Hi I wanted to know what inspired the poen body bags? Was it a natural disaster? If so what was it?
Kind Regards
Lorraine
Michael H. Brownstein
2011-03-29 17:32:47
The poem "Body Bags" came from a photograph after a terrible natural disaster hit Bengladesh--great waves, great winds and a great storm.
Hope this helps.
Michael H. Brownstein