Monday, 9 December 2024

Five Poems by Brandon Shane

 




 

 

Abandoned Summit

 

 

The crumbling chapel, 

windy stone face 

below a village body, 

ocean at the feet; 

an orphan clawing up the old mount 

where scrawled text became divine, 

stepping upon the gravel grounds, 

the slow turn of his head, 

slumped shrubs and casual wren, 

unsure where the monks have gone, 

watching a hawk leap off a cliff 

and swoop down to a prey 

not even God can see, 

but here are olives 

dangling trees 

feeling the dirt 

and rock 

sliding with the last 

of the holy men. 

 

 

The Bishop of Rome  

  

I sometimes imagine Pope Francis  

like all the other popes,  

walking back to his bedroom  

after a long day  

giving speeches about God,  

a college lecturer of divine order,  

at night coughing bedside  

where he will   

communicate with God,  

dragging urine  

after pissing on the toilet seat,  

shitting fettuccine and baked chicken,  

in the back of his mind  

lawsuits and payouts  

eight hundred and eighty million at a time,  

shuffling priests from country  

to country like supreme commander,  

and protectorate of pedophiles,  

the most prolific of them all,  

but mostly thinking  

of tomorrow's script,  

a theatrical pivot to the left,  

a strong conservative  

acknowledgement,  

and I often read stories of vigilantes  

gunning down or righteously lynching  

the depraved adults who exploit  

and abuse children,  

laughing in absurdity; how we too  

have it in the back of our minds,  

just like Pope Francis,  

it has become a part of the job,  

part of our expectations,  

if it was anyone else,  

corporate headquarters  

would be closer to hell  

than the unfaithful depictions of Christ,  

but St. Peter’s Square  

was beautiful as ever,  

in line for many hours last week,  

thinking of the children  

and scarred men prone to suicide;  

I see a blood-stained cassock,  

the Sistine Chapel  

on fire.  

 

 

The Way of Things 

 

There are times 

when I close my eyes 

in the garden 

beside potted plants, 

and the rain 

is enough to drown 

my spirit, 

and seeing you still 

on the porch, 

water washing over you, 

at midnight when coyotes 

are howling far from their den, 

devouring the sick, 

the dying 

 

I say, 

don't worry 

I've thought of killing myself too, 

and all revolutionaries 

want to return 

to a place they used to be, 

you must understand how it is; 

the museums are filled with them, 

faded things of dead artists 

dust worth fortunes, 

reanimated by the youth 

unaware and dreaming 

of paradise lost, 

not knowing the old wither 

in their menagerie of memories; 

how young felt, 

how sex felt, 

how not caring felt. 

 

Dance there, wet and bitten, 

drill oil while you can, sit 

on the long side of a pier; 

some ponds are stagnant 

some lovers are killers, 

find heaven in the gills 

of the day's only catch, 

be attentive to the effortlessly beautiful; 

bluejays, wildflowers in spring lush, 

forests dense enough to hear rituals, 

let life congregate 

all around you, and reanimate 

boxes tucked away in the attic. 

 

Don't wait until the end, 

but you will, 

we all do. 

 

 

Fragmented Body  

  

Saturday, my son was small enough  

to disappear into a field of grass,  

and become one with worms traversing  

red dirt like the inner core of a planet.  

  

Scarecrows bending to Autumn wind,  

wheat high enough to think of horror,  

a flock of geese migrating overhead,  

he points and imagines his arms wings;  

the world offers us a breath  

and reminds that in every well  

is not a monster, but water.  

  

If my son was alone, he’d be surrounded  

by gardens of jasmine and juniper,  

gooseberries on the tip of his rosy boa tongue,  

a prairie, and him leaving behind a farmhouse,  

but sometimes I regret not believing in God,  

and forgoing baptism.  

  

Today, my son is small enough  

to fit in the linen strips of an Egyptian priest,  

pressing him into the confidentiality  

of a sarcophagus. And I can't think  

beyond this, like the old toad catching flies.  

  

There is no firefly ghost, or butterfly  

fluttering out of a cherished novel  

that introduced literature,  

and among crimson tides of red wine,  

seagulls have doused themselves drunk,  

but none more than I.  

  

The dirty streets of Long Beach,  

or blossoming floral mists of Kushiro,  

sun rises but these blinds  

have made it night,  

there are boundaries, then walls,  

dreary forests without flowers,  

clouds camouflaging mountains,  

airplanes heading into explosion,  

an electric hum, fog rolling downhill; 

this dark ocean used to sparkle 

and the land so beautiful.

 

  

 

For The Empty Toy Box  

  

Leaving my daughter alone  

with a red hen, an idol,  

small radio playing Sinatra,  

reminding her of grandad,  

and thinking  

how strange  

the many  

she's lost,  

including mom,  

including everything  

beyond a father  

toiling with the academics.  

   

How quickly  

they left, and how soon  

she arrived,   

it feels like we've said  

goodbye before,  

in another life,  

maybe this began a joke,  

and it just so happened,  

wiping her eyes  

when we visit the dirt  

that reminds  

there used to be more,  

there used to be castles,  

and people waiting  

at the airport.  

   

The clock ticks,  

empty bottle drips wine  

into a stained glass,  

and fruit in the freezer  

begs to be eaten;  

her eyes are so large  

they contain constellations,  

dreams in multitudes,  

poetry  

if not written,  

will be lived,  

and blood stops flowing  

on late nights  

when sirens come too close,  

gunshots  

or maybe fireworks.  

  

My legs have become thin  

and my skin even darker  

walking the streets  

to the bus-stop,  

you see poetry in motion,  

nights and days  

in Long Beach,  

the old man's voicemails,  

waking up to his inexistence.  

   

I have nothing but,  

accrued truly little,  

and none of our family,  

have become ghosts  

or left behind an envelope.  

   

Now I stare out windows  

and listen to the rain like geese,  

a man in the next apartment  

has taken too much  

of something,  

he is miserable,  

and defiant,  

   

and he too  

has a child,  

hearing doors slam  

I thought the sky  

had enough;  

they will never  

find me laying down  

counting clouds  

on the asphalt,  

so dirty, so hopeless.  

   

She listens to my calls,  

and I put away the alcohol,  

listen to each bird  

how their beauty  

extends to music,  

and that's not enough;  

money has not been too kind  

funeral bills,  

the cost of saying goodbye  

to the already dead,  

and the animal returns  

when there is no food,  

the pantries have closed  

their arms, another girl  

is fed, but mine  

martyred.  

I have waited  

in the halls of brevity, turning pages  

of a great American novel,  

unable to speak,  

and they are all waiting  

for me up there,  

knowing delusion thrives  

in poverty.  

  

Daughter,  

my story is in the attic,  

but yours will be a raven;  

it will be magnificent;  

we will look upon  

these paltry sums and laugh,  

and then some time gone,  

you will look upon these days  

and cry.  

It will take some tears  

to get laughter.








Brandon Shane is a poet and horticulturist, born in Yokosuka, Japan. You can see his work in trampset, the Argyle Literary Magazine, Berlin Literary Review, Acropolis Journal, Grim & Gilded, Ink in Thirds, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, among many others. He would graduate from Cal State Long Beach with a degree in English.

 

 

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