March 22, 2018

Three Poems by Heath Brougher: "The Word Weaver," "Fuel," and "November Bough"

Heath Brougher is a poetry editor of Into the Void Magazine. He is a multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net Nominee and judged "Into the Void’s" 2016 Poetry Competition and edited the anthology "Luminous Echoes," the proceeds of which will be donated to an organization which helps prevent suicide and self-harm. He has published four chapbooks and has three more forthcoming in 2018. His work has appeared in the Taj Mahal Review, Chiron Review, MiPOesias, Degenerate Literature, Main Street Rag, Blue Fifth Review, BlazeVOX, and elsewhere. His Facebook page is at:
https://www.facebook.com/heath.brougher

                                 
                                     
                                 



The Word-Weaver
(for Don Beukes)

I know a man who was born
at the intersection of History and Injustice
and through a head-spinning whirlwind
of astounding word-weaving sculpts brilliant statues
of language often dealing with this experience.
What is the experience, you ask? That would be
growing up in South Africa during the Apartheid.

It is imperative that the masses
read the words he has woven
as his voice is one of the most important
to be heard among the contemporary noise.

He is
an endless stream of Humanity and Magnanimity.
He is
one of the most important voices in the world.

I am
astounded by the Genius with which he tells these tales.
I am
so utterly honored to have the privilege of calling him a close friend.



Fuel

You can’t possibly tell me
that you
       can possibly tell me
that there is no way
       for people
to get from point A
to point B
without using
consuming
                    bingeing upon
oil —      Wow! that is a big time lobbied corporate power—
you can’t possibly tell me
that you
can possibly tell me
that we cannot
figure out another way—

well, actually we have figured out myriad other ways
but this manmade reality of money has killed all off every one of them.
(we did, after all, put a man on the moon)



November Bough

However you talk,
in any meaningless language,
reciting the sculpted gutturals
that distinguish a human
from a goat, from now on whenever you speak there will be
a hollowness in the tone, the voice-pitch
will ring empty for a moment,
as no birds will anymore flutter
from the trees of Wholeness and Integrity. November staring down
the calendar, eyeing once-bulbous euphony,
and eclipsing the cascade of echoing words
down the drain, left flushed and pallid
by this gaunt thing that whispers through the breeze
its sordid songs played over the begging and beseeching.


Heath Brougher



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