leaves glowing backlit
along the trail catch my eye
’til the earth moves
by James Brush
Category: Poems
Poems written by me.
There are these times,
And then some days…
There are the leaves on the neighbor’s tree
That haven’t fallen yet
They’re golden crisp and burned
Standing out form the mistletoe
All around
Some mornings the sky is just the opposite
And the leaves stand out
But never seem to fall
I’ll watch them every morning
While the dogs investigate the yard
I know those leaves will never fall
Until I stop watching
All of this, this time, this day
It’s falling all around…
There is all of this and then these people too
-This is from a road trip in ’95.
Walking low streets, I breathe mountains
Frosty morning air steals into my lungs like perfect smoke
Later desert warmth will rule the day, and storms…
Skies blaze with fiery clouds
Balloons navigate the misty currents
My feet walk conquistador paths and missionary trails
Turned streets that lead past adobe homes and pueblo bungalows
To breakfast in a warm and welcoming diner:
Bagel and cream cheese with fresh green chiles
©1995
Chlorine bubbles
Teenage lifeguards
Lap lanes
Sun
He can’t hold his breath that long
She swims, swims, swims
Swim
She can’t hold her breath for him
Holding hands
Holding breath
Chlorine water bubbles
Break like glass
Smiling faces break the mirror
Sun
Swim
Summer
Ten more laps
Five
One
Holding breath
Holding sun
They hold each other
Swimming
Only Labor Day
(so far away)
dispels the dream
Of swimming, sun and
Water love
Chlorine swim
Sun five
Breath one
He will hold his breath for her,
Offering it like sunshine gold
From wrinkled hand
Swimming, she accepts
Breathes the breath
Of summer sun
—
This one came one summer day a few years ago while swimming laps at the neighborhood pool. Community pools are so ordinary and yet there’s a certain magic as well. Perhaps it’s just the way chlorine smells and warm water feels when it becomes part of memory.
I’ve been trying to teach haiku. It’s a fun activity for when time is short at the end of the year. I especially like it because it’s simple, yet it forces kids to really choose their words carefully, something they are not often wont to do.
One student, having trouble with the form asked if I could go over it again and write one on the board for him…
First, five syllables
The second line has seven
Third line follows first
and then, this…
Haikus are poems
Usually do not rhyme
Just keep it simple
For some reason they found these amusing.
Several postcards hang next to my computer. Here’s one of them…
Daydreaming
Sometimes I’m the last alive inside this hidden land.
Dreams speak louder, visions brighter
than mere newspapers in that other world.
My eyes drift to the bulletin board, confront that angry photo of Geronimo.
He clutches his rifle in gnarled old warrior’s hands and says,
“Get back to work.”
I find that doing taxes and editing a video take up most of my blogging time. That’s why I’ve been posting old stuff lately.
Old to me anyway.
I’m also trying to plan a bit of a vacation which has me thinking about trips taken in the past. Oftentimes, I had no film (it was expensive!) so I just tried to capture my experiences in short snippets of free poetry, and so with thoughts of Kris Kristofferson singing, “nuthin’ ain’t worth nuthin’ but it’s free,” I give you this, hopefully worth more than nuthin’, but still free…
driving all night
three twenty eight a.m.,
they were all asleep;
i stopped the jeep on the roadside,
stepped into the desert dream of night alone;
i sought peace from the thundering snores
of bodies stuffed under blankets
and the moldy smell of a taco bell dinner
bought in wichita falls.
all new mexico’s stars spilled out,
diamonds across the milky way;
i shivered in the crystal air;
i spotted shooting stars and satellites;
i longed for a coyote’s howl to complete my cliché,
but coltrane’s notes were just as good,
drifting like ghosts from the cracked window;
i smiled when elvin jones’ drum solo kicked in
on summertime.
by morning, to sleepy to care,
we argued about who would drive next,
and we rested in the garden of the gods.
©1995, James Brush
Leftovers from a road trip in the early ’90s…
Miles (Never Once Imagined)
And we drove for miles—
And we saw those miles—
Drifting out toward space
Layers of desert air so far beyond the mountains
I saw the miles quicken,
Rising up like a beast from the steam of the engine
Outside Albuquerque
Again near Palm Springs
Jeep racing without roof, without doors
Away from Vegas with just eighteen dollars
from one-armed bandits
Leftover pizza hut and half a cup of jingling quarters
There were miles more to go
And others to go them with
So we only stayed in LA for three hours
In the desert that night we both finally saw
The miles to the stars
Humbled to behold and freezing
In the imagined terror of a Mojave midnight
I never could have imagined all the miles still to come
Nor the people with whom I would travel them
Just then
Just there
Everything was right
We had mountains to climb and never once imagined
We would change our minds
Hypnotized by wheels rumbling all through the night
Outside my car, North Texas, transformed, a foggy ocean—
deep, impenetrable, broken by ghosts of signs that manifest mysterious—
and vanish
Punk rock radio, blaring sonic wind, pushes outward—
a star core against the pressure of the fog—
infinite silence
Worlds unseen beyond the mist lead into other destinies: farm and field,
town and school; fast food off ramp and neon light—
Wichita Falls
I accelerate, but I am not moving
©2003
(an old poem…)
The broken ships lay torn under black cliffs
Nailed to shore by Sea’s relentless hammer
Dead Gull silhouette floats in glowing phosphor
Blown about by Gale’s unending power
Water shudders under Sky’s turbulent embrace
Gray battles Grey at Horizon’s obscured line
No life on the Shore of Ghosts, no life here
Except me, the phantom-dreaming me
I stand alone and watch this scene buried in dark night
My breath the only life among the wrecks
Trembling under waves, my feet give way
The deck shakes, rocks—I try to look around
Feet carry me across upended planks
A funeral shroud of sailcloth clings to Mast’s broken arm
No recent death appears in this ancient scene
Everything here has always existed before me
I ask, “Why bring me here? Does this pertain to me?”
From Childhood’s nighttime terrors to Adulthood’s fever dreams
I’ve walked these planks all my life, a thousand times,
Asking only, “Where am I? What does this mean?”