Sunday, 31 August 2025

Five Poems by Heath Brougher

 






Shadows Inc.

 

  

I can't wear properly wear 

a fake smiley face. 

I'm too real 

to deign to phonyism 

 

If I keep up this "integrity" thing 

the herd will eventually stop by 

and tear me to pieces. 

 

So it goes, I guess.

 

 

 

Fight the Hole in Life

 

 

The earth takes no prisoners. 

Live your life 

in order 

to make 

a 

dent 

in its 

stubbornly personified manifestations 

and manifestos. 

 

Else, Humanity is doomed to wither  

on the vine of palest pablum and people like J. Evans Pritchard 

and a flurry of esoteric insanity the Quotidians notch their necks at but accept because the plastic crowd seems to understand or pretends to agree with the hollow ideology broadcast on the omnipresent screens. 

 

 

 

Death of a Winter

 

 

Spring leaps forth causing April to unexpectedly 

rescue the deadened Spirits from the dismal 

cotton skies of prison-coloured clouds 

made of wounded wicker and withered wisteria. 

 

Soon, plants and orioles awaken and once more  

the cinereous skies will be re-bleached in blue and boldly blonde 

locks of life. Pistols will be removed 

from the sides of foreheads 

and put back into the hollowed-out bibles 

from which they came. A tiny portion 

of leverage and pressure plays 

an enormous role in whether 

a sapient and sensitive creature's blood 

continues to flow in its fleshy cage, or not.

 

 

 

Post-Postmodern Buildingsides  

 

Buildings pulsate—touch havens of heavens  

like monoliths born of steel.  

 

They reach upward with desperate ambition,  

clawing at the sky—trying to tear it open.  

 

Beneath the hulking hands, deep shadows enflesh the humans  

long and thin and otherwise—concealing secrets  

of long-lost endeavours once abound the cement streets. 

 

Faded glory skirts among alleyways 

filled with the hum of mechanical exertion.

 

  

The Immortal End

 

 

The keenest of empires 

will come to destroy and despair 

your mind 

with houses of broken chairs 

and cobwebbed wicked thrones  

sprouting ghosts and vanity. 

 

 

 

 

 




 

 

Heath Brougher is the editor-in-chief of Concrete Mist Press and former poetry editor for Into the Void Magazine, winner of the 2017 and 2018 Saboteur Awards. He is a multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net Nominee and was awarded the 2018 Poet of the Year Award from Taj Mahal Review.

 

 

 


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