sulphur butterfly
stone skipping across the sky
wind and highway noise
by James Brush
Category: Poems
Poems written by me.
see your son
a gun in his hand
belt of shells
around his waist
disarm that boy
teach him—
find diversion
without annihilation
///
Erasure poem from a letter written by M.B. Davis of Waco to the Texas Congress of Mothers in 1910 regarding the widespread killing of grackles by children who were encouraged to hone their marksmanship skills
Source—“A History of Austin’s Love-Hate Relationship with the Grackle” by Andrew Weber on kut.org
my yard work helper
throws mud, laughing
high forties
running through sprinklers
in filthy pj’s
like Guthrie his
guitar screams
this machine
kills fascists
this guitar
is an animal’s bite
imperfect neck gripped
tight to sparse
applause for a
street busker
trying to change
the world
each measure
a fool’s gamble
might as well
ask the planets
change orbits
for a few coins?
a loose needle
some matches
a few bucks
in the guitar case
open like a mouth
in mid-phrase
///
red bud blossoms
flickers of warmth
in grey fog
the stiff-legged dog still
wants to play and race
old bones, stretched
taut muscles like lightning
through molasses across
the yard like she tore up
the house as a puppy once
a white storm with black ears
and teeth she flinches
when I put the ointment on
the scrapes from falling, but
I think she knows I’m helping
her know I understand you
are not having fun if
you’re not getting hurt
///
The polished geniuses on TV talked relativity the day my favorite chili joint closed down. Rumors say it’ll be resurrected someday inside a luxury condo retail office project, which just reminds me of the punk clubs of my youth—old warehouses now torn down as the knights of progress routed the nights of rock n roll, leaving behind one faint note, the endless sustain of a beautifully overdriven pawn shop guitar fading forever beneath silent city stars, a ripple in passing gravity waves.
///
This Is Not a Literary Journal :: The Prompt that Keeps on Prompting
Blue eyes mean avalanches, the old climber warned. Passersby glanced up at condos rising downtown like fingers set to claw the sun. So little light filtered down through the shadows, everyone shivered in the heat. Two panhandlers played the same song in different keys on opposite sides of the street. One man, with crampons and ice axe, started to scale the tallest condo. His friend watched him begin his ascent then ducked into a Thai restaurant where members of his support group met on Tuesdays to start a new political movement. Avalanches could be metal, bricks or piles of trash, stony absences where everything that mattered used to be.
///
This Is Not a Literary Journal :: Leaving Mount Everest Alone
the cold doesn’t respect
you. the tattoo hides
behind your jacket. the wind
goes digging sharktoothed
nibbling skin. everything
hidden surfaces. revealed
true-love shark tattoos swim
deep away from weekend
fisherman cold and insolent
on seas they claim they own.
—
This is for the “True love shop” prompt at This Is Not a Literary Journal.