Three Poems by Michael Brownstein

QUESTIONS FROM THE AGES AND TIME MISSPENT IN THE CITY 
  
I am past fifty and wondering where I am going with this. 
Hanukah has ended, Christmas is past, Kwanza is gathering mass. 
A hundred feet from the trail, the horse barn has the smell of horses, 
Sweat and sawdust stained and sticky, mold drenched in snow. 
A son cannot understand the reflections of a father, 
A daughter asks if God wears clothes all of the time, 
And a sister says she knew an angel once: She never wore anything. 
Early morning, the resident blue jay hops on its branch: 
Glory. Glory. Glory. A wife has an inability to see, 
A son combs his hair without a mirror, a daughter dresses in the dark, 
and a sister says: I met God once.  She is always naked before the mirror.

GUESTS 

 

The dog

Living in my house

Does not belong to me.

 

The woman

Across the street

Is someone I do not

Wish to know.

 

The tree topped

By the City of Jefferson

No longer can be climbed.

 

We enter doorways

Acred across fields

Of storefronts, broken casings,

Coyotes, raccoon teeth.

 

 

 

AS THE ICE MELTS, THE BLOOD BEGINS TO BOIL

 

Do you not understand the strike in lightning,

the thunder curse that comes after,

the unsustainable armadillos moving

northwards with the warm waters?

Rootworm, boll weevil, red-winged

blackbird, great grizzly of the western caves,

West Niles virus, give us your best shot. 

The Australian box jellyfish drinks

in the oxygen of a change in weather,

its long tentacles black lipsticked tire treads,

wind worn, wind weaved, a car careening

out of control, its driver breaking ferociously,

an oak, thick weed, tall grass, the only future

either will ever know. Make sure

the last woman alive turns out the lights. 

 

 

 

Michael H. Brownstein has been widely published. His latest works, Firestorm: A Rendering of Torah (http://booksonblog35.blogspot.com/) (Camel Saloon Books on Blogs) and The Katy Trail, Mid-Missori, 100F Outside and other poems (http://barometricpressures.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-katy-trail-mid-missouri-100f.html) (Barometric Pressures--A Kind of Hurricane Press). The Katy Trail, Mid-Missouri, 100F Outside And Other PoemsHis work has appeared in The Café Review, American Letters and Commentary, Xavier Review, Hotel Amerika, Meridian Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, The Pacific Review, and others. In addition, he has nine poetry chapbooks including The Shooting Gallery (Samidat Press, 1987), Poems from the Body Bag (Ommation Press, 1988), A Period of Trees (Snark Press, 2004), What Stone Is (Fractal Edge Press, 2005), and I Was a Teacher Once (Ten Page Press, 2011: (http://tenpagespress.wordpress.com/2011/03/27/i-was-a-teacher-once-by-michael-h-brownstein/). He is the editor of First Poems from Viet Nam (2011).