Michael H. Brownstein: Poems

Michael H. Brownstein has nine poetry chapbooks including A Period of Trees (Snark Press, 2004), Firestorm: A Rendering of Torah (Camel Saloon Press, 2012), and The Possibility of Sky and Hell (White Knuckle Press, 2013). He is the editor of First Poems from Viet Nam (2011).

HOW DO YOU BECOME A GHOST? I DO NOT KNOW. NOR DO I CARE TO ANSWER

One moment you feel a weight of gravity,

A blanket, for example, the first light,

A slight draft and then, out of focus,

You come into yourself and understand

The confusion of ghosts. How unsettling to be

Alone. You were dreaming and now

You are watching yourself sleep.

When they come, you will not be ready.

In those minutes, in those days, in that first week,

Can you not hear the thunder? The watcher?

The making of the pyre? Nails to wood?

Sorry, there is nothing here—just wind

You now control, a wall no longer in the way.

How do you make a ghost? Someone was not there

When someone was needed. You were alone

When you could not reach out to laughter.

Let the thunder roar, let the sitter sit with you,

Let a candle light your way, let the warmth come near,

Let your lack of weight make it that much easier.

Somewhere there must be a home for you.

Somewhere there must be a brightness to grow into.

BECAUSE I TURNED OFF THE FURNACE

1.

Because I turned off the heat

Because I closed the back room windows

Because the wind is an empty threat

and the bottle is an empty bottle

Because the juice in the bottle was once sweet

Because the cheese in the refrigerator is molding

Because the bread on top of the refrigerator is green

Because there are seeds on your stockings

and you are tracking pollen through the house

Because antiseptic wipes can take only so much

and then they are as useless as the heat

when I went to the basement and turned it off

2.

In the house of too much food

In the playground of too much exercise equipment

In the storeroom of too much of nothing

nothing to eat nowhere to sleep not a single seat

no toys no games no books no clothes

In the apartment of too many people

In the garden of too many weeds

Dandelions, clover, crabgrass and so many

leaves for boiling and baking,

stems and roots and large growths of mushroom

In the street of too many cars and trucks

In the beach of too many dead fish and seagulls

In the ocean teeming with algae and a lack of oxygen

and so much carbon dioxide and plastic debris

and strangled turtles decomposing for years

and years and then everything captured by large tangles

of forests of algae expanding and expanding

until the water is dead vertebrates

and all of the small invertebrates surviving

on this new quality of nonoxygenated being

In the banks full of too little money

but incredible amounts of greed and bloodshed

3.

Then we’re in the castle of the big growth forests

Then we’re surrounded by acorns and pistachio nuts

Then the sunlight filters to the grandiose weeds

Then the path fills with sunlight and sunshine,

large clear shadows and large opaque beings

Then we run to clearings and find empty graves

full of stones, pebbles and grass clippings,

mites, centipedes and bluebird feathers

Then a dragon cloud devours the sky

Then it begins to rain and the roof of the castle leaks

stone and plaster and lead paint in large flakes

until the frescoed floor is dotted with white smudges

and our shoes are the color of lime ash and charcoaled wood

Then everything settles into a silence as great as God

and the nations of the planet do not even notice

Then the thinning begins, great birds, long reptiles,

one flick of the tongue of the Komodo dragon

4.

Afterwards there will be little left of what was left to begin with

Afterwards the language of words will be devoid of vocal sounds

and pronunciation will be in the form of whistles and breathing

no one able to communicate until letters are again announced

fitting the afterwards of the world as we say it is directly now

Afterwards will be exactly after that one scar of a word loosens

itself into the realm of invention and intervention

Afterwards the pirates of Somalia will eat the dry fruit on the plain

Afterwards the pirates of Somalia will sleep in the tall grass

Afterwards the pirates of Somalia will allow us to speak

Afterwards the pirates of Somalia will speak for us and we will know

Afterwards the words will come freely and fill us with longing

Afterwards we will cry with relief and sing the song of words

whistling, breathing, growling, are teeth bright and sharp


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