April 4, 2015

MICHAEL BROWNSTEIN "GHOSTS, IN THE BEGINNING, GEOMETRY AND ITS PLACE IN A POEM"

GHOSTS 

I do not have a presence and she tells me she is a ghost.
Substance has that kind of weight.
You talk to the streams radiating from the edge of the river
as if each one were a snake that fat
and walk into an outer universe
to draw the night with color,
quick and simple,
exactly like life and everything else in this world.



IN THE BEGINNING

drums beat cool
clear weathered
freshly watered
partly cloudy
wooden drums
deep water drums
hard shelled and thick skinned
spirit drums
spirit drums
spirit drums
& children rush from their homes
women leap across dancing fields
men prance and jump
within reach of the sky
the wind a nice touch
& the drums
cool
hard boiled
one hand to another


GEOMETRY AND ITS PLACE IN A POEM
—after a first line by Richard Hugo

Day is a woman in love and night
a plate holding her world, small and confined
to a few rooms in a cramped two flat.
She tastes like Venus and her smell
wrought with failure and grease holds up the walls.
Afternoon comes on with strawberry visions,
Venn diagrams, raspberries, huckleberries,
blueberries, pie, everything circumvent,
vanilla with cream and very berry mousse. 

~Michael Brownstein

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