Prayer Songs

 —Poetry by Michael H. Brownstein,
Jefferson City, MO
—Photos Courtesy of Public Domain

 

 

THE SINGER SINGS

The lyrics of the throat singer
syphoning the grasp of cloud
away from clammy skin, souled
ice, sweetgum and bloodroot.
Is it not enough to build a pyramid,
a kiosk, an inverted dream catcher,
a nightmare of melody and psalm?
Nothing lasts now or later—
nothing is whole at the end of its time
and nothing is nothing where it exists.
No, this is not how the prayer song ends,
it has no ending, the kora playing on,
the shakaree, the great talking drum.
A performer gets ready to leave the stage,
but he cannot, the applause transfixing,
the people standing at attention,
his shirt attaches itself to his scars
and when he tries to pull away,
he remains a statue of what might have been
if he had been allowed to enter the stage
during a time of different footprints.

 

 

 

 

WHEN NIGHT FELL AT NOON

I woke today to an earthquake of
a minute and a half before the magna
broke through a glade of crust:
did you ever feel like you were ten miles from daylight,
and for reasons you can never discern,
you are positive
Ratri, goddess of darkness ate the sun.

 

 

 

 

THE RAPE OF THE RAPIST

A thigh of sky
and a black zipper
frayed

painted fingernails of faith
glacier blue
a rainbow of water

there is no frayed zipper
only a charcoal smudge
a reprint of thigh

and now
under a canopy of darkness
he studies the metallic shape of home

how can you forget
the tornado turbulent passion
he reimagines himself whole

and wonders
how the victim he selected
had already selected him

 

 

 

 

URBAN IMAGE

A well-lit flange of red at dusk
slips across
whitewashed siding on old houses—
the city preparing itself for tomorrow's work,
a light-weight silence
street lamps
stretching shadow
and near the corner,
one car with its headlights left on

 

 

 

 

WIND AND WIND

A confused, but nice awkward breeze
whispers through the leaves,
yells twice, lets out a scream,
a tsunami, a babbling brook, an easy stream:

the sky is blue with snowcapped clouds,
the breeze stutters, over crowds,
lets out a jeer, the cloud flies into the east,
and the breeze becomes a beast.

Then it shudders, sighs and smiles,
and hangs around the trees awhile—
all is well, the sky is blue
and the breeze subdued.

 

 

 

 

LET ME DREAM

Let me wake
to these glorious glades of sunlight,
an ordering of stone on stone,
a transparency in sand—

rise up
to the great blue puddles of sky,
a grand procession of green-leafed ocean,
blossoms of songbirds—

and stretch
into the melody of anvil and hammer,
streams of color crossing rivers,
a soft bark of one dog, the crusade that comes after.

___________________

Today’s LittleNip:

silently we conformed into something else
a something we did not like
and so we steadied ourselves,
looked across the horizon,
formed groups of nonconformists and this,
as the poet said, made all the difference

—Michael H. Brownstein

___________________

—Medusa, with thanks to Michael Brownstein for today’s fine poetry!

 

 

 

 

A reminder that 

Mosaic of Voices will host 

Jeanine Stevens and Laura Rosenthal

in Lodi today, 2pm; 

Sacramento Poetry Alliance features 

Shawn Pittard and David Koehn at 4pm

in Sacramento; there will be a reception at

Sacramento Poetry Center today, 6pm,

featuring Liz Baxmeyer's art and poetry;

and at 7:30pm, also at the R25 Arts Complex,

there will be a memorial reading and jam 

for B.L. Kennedy who passed away this year.

For info about these and other

future poetry happenings in
Northern California and otherwheres,
click on
UPCOMING NORCAL EVENTS
(http://medusaskitchen.blogspot.com/p/wtf.html)
in the links at the top of this page—
and keep an eye on this link and on
the daily Kitchen for happenings
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 during the week.

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