two grackles
wander the wet grass
between storms
by James Brush
Category: Poems
Poems written by me.
black vultures
umbrella parade
morning rain
you grasp for stolen rock
in freefall dreams
when slow heart winter
ends in rushing wind
in warm air wake the ceiling gone
wax dripping from your wings
peculiar prey these insects
so full of foreign blood
you shrug against the unfamiliar
weight, this strange sky dawning
rest in wooden building eaves
roost in secret attic shelters
alight and burn with dawn
a million tiny fires raging
through the empire of the sun
///
I just finished reading James Jones’s The Thin Red Line (which I do recommend) and found myself reading up on the Pacific battles of World War II. The Wikipedia rabbit hole led me to one particularly horrifying scheme thought up during the war, Bat Bombs:
Bat bombs were an experimental World War II weapon developed by the United States. The bomb consisted of a bomb-shaped casing with numerous compartments, each containing a Mexican Free-tailed Bat with a small timed incendiary bomb attached. Dropped from a bomber at dawn, the casings would deploy a parachute in mid-flight and open to release the bats which would then roost in eaves and attics. The incendiaries would start fires in inaccessible places in the largely wood and paper construction of the Japanese cities that were the weapon’s intended target.
They were never used against the Japanese, but the army did manage to blow up one of their own facilities experimenting with the concept. I found it particularly troubling, this use of wild animals basically to kill civilians, and I kept thinking about the bats. What it must have been like to suddenly be out of hibernation in a strange place, that sense of dislocation coupled with the instinct to hunt and roost. That’s what led to this poem.
rain lilies
bend
toward sunset
the waiting backhoe
a dinosaur in the fog
men begin their work
I don’t know what it is about long-legged waders that inspires me to write odd haibun, but here’s “The Cattle Egret” appearing in the ‘Animals in the City’ issue of qarrtsiluni.
Even cooler is sharing the day with Deb Scott and her beautiful work, and be sure to check out this one by Joseph Harker. Hell, just read the whole issue.
If you like egret haibun thing, I had another one published in qarrtsiluni back in 2011 and there’s one here too.
the gear turner’s burden
is a wrench and lonely work
on the plains beyond
old 66 where grass
fire prays the flowers
into smoke he turns
his shoulder to his work
where he sweats the ground
grows mud he knows
the hoarse and tired voices
calling from the gears
creaking aching groaning
rusty throats and steel tongues
pinned and staked
burned and buried all the years
forgotten when the earth closed
healing on their work
in strange articulation
the gear turner hears a song
the old machines the old machines
he’ll whisper to the others
when evening fires burn low
he’ll creak and groan
in steel tongue stolen
riddles to their questions
—
This is another poem based on the image in The Mag #109. I did another one from this same photo last year.
My Headache
I talk freely
I talk fluently
I talk to God
I swore, and the noise arose
I thought I was better
than those smiles,
this heart
///
–Erasure Poem made from Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart.” One poem per page from The Essential Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe (Barnes & Noble, 2004)
This is the final erasure poem from Poe’s “Tell-Tale Heart.” It’s been an interesting experiment creating these. I chose the story because it was short, I knew I’d have time to do it, and I know the story well since it’s a freshman lit standard. I wanted to escape the story, but Poe’s deranged narrator made that difficult and so the poems came out appropriately dark.
Poe was also a tricky subject for his elevated use of language—them fifty dollar words, if you will. I made a semi-conscious effort to avoid some of that to get a more natural, modern sound to these.
I liked doing the actual erasures what with the physical manipulation of the materials. It really felt like I was making something. I typed them, though, because I would find such things annoying to read if I had to read very many of them and also, I would like them to be able to stand on their own as a series, if not singly.
I also need to give major props to Dave Bonta whose ongoing Pepys’ Diary erasure series inspired this. Speaking of Dave, be sure to check out his beautiful new chapbook Twelve Simple Songs.
A New Sound
my hand upon
the heart was stone
you conceal
the night in silence
when four o’clock came
I entered the night aroused
to search for my own dream,
the wild beneath my ease
///
Erasure Poem made from Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart.” One poem per page from The Essential Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe (Barnes & Noble, 2004)
The Wind Crossing the Floor
You, the spider
gazed upon a dull old man’s face
directed by instinct
my heart kept still
told me to refrain
(I thought)
///
Erasure Poem made from Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart.” One poem per page from The Essential Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe (Barnes & Noble, 2004)