Poetry By Heath Brougher

Heath Brougher is the poetry editor of Five 2 One Magazine. His first chapbook is titled "A Curmudgeon Is Born" (Yellow Chair Press, 2016). His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Diverse Voices Quarterly, Chiron Review, Of/with, Crack the Spine, Lakeview, MiPOesias, Clockwise Cat, Gloom Cupboard, X-Peri, eFiction India, and elsewhere. When not writing he helps with the charity Paws Soup Kitchen which gives out free dog/cat food to low income families with pets.


Gulfing

Talked myself
                        out of staying standing
            in coral,                       guarding the nest
in the ocean.

—those who make the oil disappear
    by simply sinking it from sight
    to the sandy floors of ocean-life below
    would not have it any other way—

metaphysical money-plants
rule and thrive in the preconceived reality
                        agreed upon centuries ago

as
the sunken oil smothers
corals,                                     the ocean floor.





Watching Whales

Watching whales
from a             Mexican pool
            while exercising with mud in my hand,
                                                plastic in my mouth,
posing for pictures with an iguana draped over sunburned skin
while the audience of the aqua aerobics class
            yell at me to get back to exercising.





Adjectiving

Your brooding
smiling
brooding drooling smile-filled
broomful of smiles

                                    a roomful of miles

and x-et
            x et era
            x et eralistic
                       
[the evolution of nouns into adjectives]
    
            etcetera etceteral

                        [the nouns are adjectiving!]

the goliath of the swainish-colored sky
brings you the swill to drink
all the while
brooming more miles as
the broods produce the synthetic smiles.




Parasitic Waltz

Blood lithium spores shake
as woven through the air
wisps down your throat
past the tonsils dangling there
and diving right into your lungs
doing their electrical contractions
this spore is alive
in this air-chamber of Earth
soon to infiltrate your veins
your heart-throb and mushy brain

this throbbing headache in this discordant echo-chamber

its teeth
its claws
digging into the sky
and swimming and swirling onward
into the presence of the future.




Gash

In case you try to inject me    with the Circular
you should know I’ve got       a Spiral
in my back pocket for             the cure
you can’t dose me                   caliginous diagnosis
desecration                             and demolition
caliginous                               demarcation dedication
caliginous defecation caliginous demonstration caliginous demonstrative
a little bit of us alighted and now this gash is torn in the Vale.