CROOKED WINDOWS By Brian Morrisey

 

A Sandburg poem
Scotch-taped
cast through a crooked window
house on a hill
sunlight shone in
halos trembling hands
clutching a can of cheap beer
there’s a sway of contention
in the stillness of dawn.

Symptoms of purpose
beg a forgiving poem
to snapshot still life
past when wild was
concrete affection
triggering city lights
cast through a crooked window.
past when wild was
an empty bottle of cheap wine
rolled across a coffee-house floor
hollow echoes reverberated a poem
cast through a crooked window

past when wild was
wet ink smeared on the face
naked balanced
one foot on the soapbox
other tripping
self-portrait reflections
cast through a crooked window.

Day-dream nostalgia
sweating on the pillowcase
in these quiet hours
escape insomnia
driven wild
down the old dirt road
back to the rush of traffic
humming a familiar song.

Three Poems by Brian Morrisey

PIERCED SKIN

I eat the flowers
you write about
during breakfast
well intended
for coffee-breathed
liquid nightmares
found corridors
of misconceptions

You curse my name
postmarked for death
rejected poet
who fails to pierce skin
crosshairs of blurred images
within the misconception
of what appears insulting
without noticing
the enveloped secret
gift-wrapped directions
to the hidden valley
short-cut
to the poet’s promise land
well-defined
a descriptive intensity
to counteract every cliché
“…come one… come all!”
____________
STUDYING GRACE

The editor watches carefully
Actors in the masterpiece
studies grace
Creates collective pallets
It’s the newness of a voice
It’s the cold hammer of reality
It’s the importance of stepping off the sidelines
Present his stage
To say something worth saying
To light a fire to burn the ass off tomorrow with feeling
Ignited wicked heat of emotion
Run wild down streets of words and images
In search for heroes of tomorrow
Through madness of everything
Through beautiful sex between words and images
The editor wants more
will take no less
The rest of the world can wait

____________

I NEVER HUNTED

In 1989    I knew
men will be men
immersed in a
hunt for the kill
bitch-slapping mother-nature
one last time

unnecessary dribbles
of beer-can-foul-mouthed poetry
carry through winter wind
buried under our tracks
stiff moulds of work boot soles weighing
loaded rifles   heavy clothes    light expectations
into the White Mountains

A temperature of 15 and falling
freezes stillness in
the eyes of new hampshire
blind by
birch   pine    maple   evergreen

lost in deep content
off the beaten path
sidetracked
from teetering reality
we sit hidden

my father drinks
tells me something
I don’t remember
waits silent and ready

there is a river
deer we tracked
like us
in nature
are bound to drink

There is a time
that passes through
the blood of beauty
I remember

A gunshot
in the distance
I take aim
I am drunk
Bambi came running

I watch her pass
in awe of her wildness

He watched me
He didn’t shoot

There were no words
There was only
a mountain   a river   a deer  a wildness
and
there no invitation
for another hunting trip

BETWEEN DISBELIEF AND SUNLIGHT…by Brian Morrisey

I am more interested
listening to
coffee-shop frat boys
groan how much

they hate poetry
than blowing my cover
to sneer out of the

corner of a poison smile
igniting the fuse

of a poetry bomb
about to explode

with no remorse

On streets
crumbling at corners
from a jaded American dream
in the head
of pregnant mother nation
too fat to mow
along that white picket fence

I live to see
the first black president
parade white man’s
insecure warfare
bleeding trigger-finger

behind fear’s revolver
pockets emptied
buy some promise
from a future
only accepting credit
for beautiful resistance
in drunken sway
between disbelief and sunlight

Hayden Carruth… by Brian Morrisey

you died
and there are no more angry letters
or poems about flowers
in the New York times
thrown upon this grave of

blood-scathed corrupt war
we know today

there are no cigarettes lit
by late night jazz saxaphones
under the poetry

I am writing a poem about your frozen hands
scraping the windshield of that old ford pickup
in rural Vermont while chewing skoal
and quoting Li Young-Lee
because I too write from experience

or the nervous twitch in your stutter
from being so alone
or whiskey by the fire
how it burned us in the end
but I will still sit here
with your spirit
and letters to Jane Kenyon
and the cancer in her step
and taking adrenaline of fear
like a salute
to living through today
even if we’re dying

while Donald Hall writes about
a leaf falling gently
upon the broken promise
of a scared husband

I will piss on the latest issue
of POETRY magazine
because Christian Wiman
murdered your ideal poem
and only a New Englander
can make such a bold homage
in your name.