Three Poems by Heath Brougher: "Rusty Wheels," "Constant Mutation," and "On Display"

Heath Brougher is the poetry editor of Five 2 One Magazine. His first chapbook A Curmudgeon Is Born is forthcoming from Yellow Chair Press. His work has appeared or is due to appear in Diverse Voices Quarterly, Chiron Review, SLAB, Main Street Rag, Crack the Spine, Third Wednesday, Of/with, Dissident Voice, Inscape Literary Journal, eFiction India, and elsewhere. When not writing he helps with the charity Paws Soup Kitchen which gives out free dog/cat food to low income families with pets.    

Rusty Wheels

We are not where we were before,
in that olden time of childhood and early youth.
At least we got to experience in our teenage years
that last flicker of pure American hope
before it’s descent into the dimness.

These days
the populace is riddled with terror and deceit,
the air is so thick with tension
you could cut off a slice
and feed it to something.

Maybe a revival could be had
(one can never predict the future) but likely no time soon.
Until then I’ll just walk along in the drabness
under the rain cloud that follows me into the Livingroom of the World.



Constant Mutation

I haven’t seen myself in years
I am white as a Russian bride

a scented candle burns at my windowsill
but I smell nothing

dust flutters through the air

I am quiet as the dust

I am becoming

something else.




On Display

I, in shame, as they pry in
from the windows uncloaked in curtains,
peeking through, to see me, naked,
in shame, standing in a vulnerable light,
my ramshackle life empty of sustenance.

lies spit through withering teeth,
in shame, I fumble the world,
half breathless, shivering, exposed
to the endless brutal Winter, pale,
gaunt, quivering hands shield my face
from the blaring daylight, looking elsewhere,
caped in weakness, in shame, I stay away.

my barren room, my dim friend,
holds me here, broken and un-repaired.

~Heath Brougher