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).
RE-EXISTENTIALISM
Once again he made the no exist list
once again he entered the office
his hand balled up, but not as a fist—
more an anvil of petrifacation and stone,
fossilized joints, fractures and breaks,
tears near the wrist, calcified bones.
Once again he was told him to go to his classroom
and wait, but he said he could not
until he made the list of students who exist.
AS THE ICE MELTS, THE BLOOD BEGINS TO BOIL
Do you not understand the strike in lightning,
the thunder curse that comes after,
the unsustainable armadillos moving
northwards with the warm waters?
Rootworm, boll weevil, red-winged
blackbird, great grizzly of the western caves,
West Niles virus, give us your best shot.
The Australian box jellyfish drinks
in the oxygen of a change in weather,
its long tentacles black lipsticked tire treads,
wind worn, wind weaved, a car careening
out of control, its driver breaking ferociously,
an oak, thick weed, tall grass, the only future
either will ever know. Make sure
the last woman alive turns out the lights.
WHEN THE STORM PASSES, THIS IS WHAT'S LEFT
I am exactly like I am.
No water of mistrust here.
Swamps, perhaps.
Perhaps the heavy coil of wood
and bones to go with it,
the shadow of a new day
sun lipped; cloud lined,
the snail of curiosity:
the bee-sting of intellect.
There was no landscaper in your life,
there was no man without a car,
there was just me:
The brake in the stomach feels no pain;
the break in the heart, everything.
White hair of frost,
powder and grey,
the rage of the storm diminished:
patterns and known drunks
a rhapsody in the color you like least.
Discover something new.
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