Showing posts with label Jack brummet poem. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jack brummet poem. Show all posts

Sunday, September 20, 2015

Poem: 3:15 A.M.

By Jack Brummet















The house is still as a painted boat
On a painted sea,























Quiet as the pond
In Monet's Water Lilies,

















And as dark
As Mephistopheles' rectum.

                ---o0o---

Friday, August 28, 2015

Poem: The 1950's

By Jack Brummet



The 1950s were about
The American Jitters: The Day The Earth Stood Still
Huntley Brinkley, The Thing, Ed Murrow, The Blob
Fidel, Godzilla, Senator Joe McCarthy, Gorgo
Who will own the moon,
Wild-eyed Nikita pounded his loafers on TV
As he promised to bury us,
The Cold War ignited on Ike's watch,
Jack Kennedy inherited the residue,
Alarms shrieked duck and cover,
Dad was in the basement,
Sandbagging the jam closet,
And caching beans and gasoline.
We scared ourselves for good
And grew up to fear nothing but nothing itself.
                   ---o0o---

Thursday, August 27, 2015

poem: The Cover-up

By Jack Brummet



The logical beauty of cover-up theories
Is they can never actually be refuted,

But snowball with every new telling.
The absence of facts

Further inflames the conspiracy theory:
The lack of facts

Points to the utter, diabolical
Efficacy of the cover-up.

            ---o0o---

Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Poem: Convergence

By Jack Brummet



It is one ocean with many names
And into the ocean, sooner or later, flows
Every river, spring, raindrop, creek, and swamp,
Every lake, lagoon, aquifer, mudpuddle, and pond,
Every snowflake, icicle, glacier, flood, bay, and teardrop.

                    ---o0o---

Tuesday, August 25, 2015

Poem: Joshua Brought Down Jericho

By Jack Brummet


Jericho was locked down tighter than a submarine.
It made Helms Deep and Fort Knox look porous.
Joshua studied the walls, scoping a way inside,
When a man with whirling gaslight eyes appeared
And grew ten feet tall and five feet wide.
It was The Lamplighter himself. "Take the shoes
From your feet on my holy ground,
And follow the ark, with seven priests with seven trumpets.”
Seven priests tooting seven horns led a parade
Around and around and around Jericho
Like Sambo marched the tigers around the tree,
Or the way the earth spins in the dark around the sun.
They marched in silence six long days.
On the seventh day they lit out at dawn
Behind the seven priests and seven trumpets
And marched around the city seven times.
After the seventh orbit, the priests blew a cadenza.
And the roar swelled each passing minute.
Every man, woman, boy, and girl,
―Young, old, red, yellow, black, and white―
And every critter, bird, and bug
Was buried in the rubble and dust
As the walls came tumbling down.            ----o0o----

Poem: Escape

By Jack Brummet

 Some of us try astral projection.
The rest of us leave in dinghies, bikes, and cars,

Racing down highways, expressways,
Streets and boulevards.

A continent of smoking skull orchard
Recedes in the rear view mirror.
                    ---o0o---

Thursday, August 20, 2015

Poem: Prayer In Istanbul

By Jack Brummet
Art by Jack Brummet - The Blue Mosque



1.
On a dusty cobblestone street
I hear three muezzins
In three directions

Call people to prayer
At three mosques,
With a slight delay

Between the calls.
Three chanters in three different rooms
Sing the same song

In phase-shifted rounds
Through nine silver speakers

Mounted on three
Ivory-white minarets
Capped in gleaming cerulean blue.

2.
At the washing stations,
Water splashes from brass spigots
Into pale grey limestone basins.

The faithful wash,
Bag their sandals,
And for the fourth time since dawn,

Walk onto the lush carpet
Of the cool quiet mosque
Tiled in words and symbols.

3.
They kneel, face the wall
And pray one more time.
I don’t know what they pray for,

But when I see their faces
And watch their devotions,
I know it’s something good.

4.
It’s so still and calm
In the mosque,
You could hear a fly expire.
          ---o0o--- 

Sunday, August 02, 2015

Poem: Dasvidaniya, Ivan Ivanovitch

By Jack Brummet


Dasvidaniya, Ivan Ivanovitch,
Living life like it couldn't last.
Each day you feel the marrrow diminish
And each week ending is a week too fast
From which there is no turning back.
So you cinch it up tight and leave no slack

To slip through those towering gates,
Relieved from duty in these United States,
Where you were born but never fit.
Now the powers that be coil and spit
As their venomed fangs are bared.
You want to abandon ship, but never dared

And paced and tried to raise the nerve,
Knowing or praying, hoping for the call
Before stumbling into that last blind curve.
It never came and now you sit and wait,
And swear this time you'll play it straight,
Hovering in circles until you stall.

         ---o0o---

Monday, July 27, 2015

33 very short poems

By Jack Brummet



 Stealth

You think one thing,
Say another,
And do a third.
                    ---o0o---


The host and tenant lock
In benign equilibrium.
                    ---o0o---


Each valley followed by a slope.
Every going followed by a return.
                    ---o0o---

There is no relief without an ache,
 And no virus without a host.
                    ---o0o---


Bricks tumble into the moat.
The king's body hangs naked from the flagpole.
                    ---o0o---



For a fleeting moment
The condition for change exists.
                    ---o0o---


A roiling thunderstorm clears the air
Like Wyatt Earp's peacekeeper
                    ---o0o---

A bad beginning can be overcome
But a good end lasts forever
                    ---o0o---

When you strip away the stage flats, makeup, and costumes,
It’s all one story starring our private heroes and dreams.
                    ---o0o---


Resurrection

He was ready to live again
Even if living just meant running
To keep ahead of the ghosts.
                    ---o0o---


It’s so still and calm
In the mosque,
You could hear a fly expire.
                    ---o0o---


The Marriage

Two tattered mannequins
Prop each other up
In the Salvation Army Store window
                    ---o0o---


Gone Fishing

As the forests swamps and bones turn slowly to coal
The last pterodactyl
Soars overhead, calling for a friend.
                    ---o0o---


It's so quiet you hear
dust motes six feet up
bump in shafts of sunlight.
                    ---o0o---



Take the worst that could happen
And add two zeros.
                    ---o0o---

High fidelity clouds gather over
The tattered stage flats of a world on fire.
                    ---o0o---


It's Getting Crowded

We cover the earth with Venn Diagrams
As our steps bisect old steps.
                    ---o0o---


The glass is not half-full

I saw our dreams disappear
Like a white pony
Over a low grassy hill.
                    ---o0o---

The Golden Rule

Listen to the songbirds trill
But keep an eye
On the buzzard section.
                    ---o0o---

An orchard of salt pillars
Circles Gomorrah's ashes:
Lot's Wife had no name.
            ---o0o---


If I don’t write it down
The words race away
Like a hit and run driver
                    ---o0o---

Your Wooden Leg

Run if you still can.
Drag that wooden leg behind you,
But keep up, jogging after your pipe-dream.
                    ---o0o---

Weather Report

Life is a raindrop
Sizzling as it skitters
Across the universal griddle.
                    ---o0o---

"And after all, what is a lie? ’Tis but the truth in masquerade"
The truth exists; the lie must be created.
                    ---o0o---

Waiting

There is no tomorrow
until we get through
the day after yesterday
                    ---o0o---

Possibilities

In your chest beats the heart of a Good Samaritan
Who never quite got off the starting blocks
                    ---o0o---

Torches & Pitchforks

The whole
Is far less than the sum
Of its parts:
                    ---o0o---

Mission Statement

The Army has two duties
To break things, and kill people;
Everything else is just fluff and overhead.
                    ---o0o---


Dodgeball

We weave around and through
Unseen hazards and shoals,

Always feeling less safe
Than we actually are.
                    ---o0o---


The Odds
  
Simple probability and statistics
Tell us ineluctably that the more times
You stick your head In the lion's mouth,
The more likely it is that one day he will close it.
                    ---o0o---

The Man In The Mirror

There's a civil war in his head:
Lobe against lobe.
                    ---o0o---


Falling per se is not a bad thing.
The problems arise when falling
Becomes not falling, or, the uncontrolled landing problem.
                    ---o0o---


The Return Of The Kings

We never picture the aliens
Coming in peace
Because we never came in peace.
                    ---o0o---






Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Poem: The Quest

By Jack Brummet



It’s all one story—
                           A ragged
                                        shape-shifting tale

Of incredible coherence and constance,
                                                           Encompassing all you know,
                                                           All you don’t know you know,
                                                           And all you one day will know.
There is more
                     To be
                             seen,
                             tasted,
                             heard,
                             and felt
                                         Than can ever be known or told.

Our myths flourish and spread,
                              Person to person, 
                                          And the mysteries of the seas and skies and stars
                                                             Fill our collective conscience

With mystical scenes,
                      Quests, and tales of greatness.
                                           These myths, tales, and fables
                                                               Cannot be invented or denied.

When you strip away
                       The stage flats, makeup, and costumes,
                                            It’s all one story
                                                                Starring private heroes and dreams.
                                   ---o0o--- 

Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Poem: I don't believe

By Jack Brummet



I don't believe in transubstantiation
I don't believe in Papal Infallibility
I don't believe in no-knock warrants
I don't believe in the divine right of kings
I don't believe in smooth jazz
I don't believe in rock instrumentals
I don't believe in jazz vocals
I don't believe in the Second Amendment
I don't believe in the Trilateral Commission
I don't believe in the international Jewish banking conspiracy
I don't believe in Republicans
I don't believe in The National Front
I don't believe in the vegan taliban
I don't believe in repressed memory
I don't believe in John Lennon not believing in Beatles
I don't believe in Richard Gere and the gerbil
I don't believe in the Ku Klux Klan
I don't believe in Tea Parties
I don't believe in libertarians
I don't believe in Hitler
I don't believe in Caligula
I don't believe in Idi Amin
I don't believe in Draco
I don't believe in reactionary figurative painters
I don't believe in dinosaurs being 4,000 years old
I don't believe your child can paint better than Jackson Pollock
I don't believe in astral projection
I don't believe in angry Buddhists
I don't believe in angry Baptists
I don't believe in Halie Selassie as a deity
I don't believe in Upanishads
I don't believe in The Psalms
I don't believe in the sutras
I don't believe in Jack Chick
I don't believe in the Book of Mormon
I don't believe in Bhagavad Gita
I don't believe in granola camp
I don't believe in nazis
I don't believe in fascists
I don't believe in the 22nd amendment
I don't believe in Osama
I don't believe in free trade
I don't believe in Christian Science
I don't believe in Busby Berkeley
I don't believe in partitioned countries
I just believe in me. . .and thee.

---o0o---

Monday, May 04, 2015

Poem The Meaning

By Jack Brummet



1
Some people say
Life would have no meaning

If we lived forever;
Others among us say

Life would have meaning
If we did.

2
The meaning of life
Is like the rings running circles

Around a tree trunk.
If you remember back

On your last trip
To the natural history museum,

The best tree sections
Have pins on their rings:

Jesus born;
Magna Carta;


Mayflower arrives in America;
Declaration of Independence;

Civil War ends;
Man walks on moon.


3
Wouldn't it be something
To not konk out

And see rings marked
Race wars end;

Israel and Palestine merge;
Poverty eliminated;

The return of Jesus;
Alien diplomats arrive?

            ---o0o--- 

Thursday, April 30, 2015

Poem: [Strangely green beneath the shadows] - generated with the poetry generator

By Jack Brummet


1
Strangely green beneath the shadows
  We converse with evil goats below the air

2
We confound fluorescent witches near the virgin
  The fun has died
Dark and glowing beyond the sea
  You pull lustful devils below

And grind blue demons against the sky
  Awaken, awaken! The evil was good:
Unsure, silent on the edge of the world 
  Down streets where guests
Look for landmarks while the snow falls

3
Mournful signs beside the fog
  The Queen is going,
shifting, restless across the water

  A phone ringing somewhere 
Out of whose dream 
  The lost man 
Asks his way 
  Trying to remember

4
Sinning beside the sea
  We hobnob with illusions beyond the spirits
Totally red under the gods

  I shove angry tomb stones beneath the virgin
The day is born and clouded hesitant,
  Saying goodbye with no words left 
In how many harbors does a stranger 
  Look for love and never knowing how

5
Strangely poisonous beyond the water,
  I divine illusions above the shadows,
Strange and mournful over the air

  We beat murky devils below the slime
You beat brilliant witches about the grave

  The life is becoming opaque, fighting back 
And crossing the frontier 
  The victim loses his way 
While the snow falls

6
  Darkening awake and blurring at the edges 
For whose sake the other 
  Leaves his home while the crowd watches.

7
We breed invisible idiots beneath the sky
  The devil is vanishing, a shadow seeking 
Another country with nothing left to lose 
            ---o0o---

Friday, April 17, 2015

Poem: Li Po In Disgrace

By Jack Brummet


Four hundred and forty-thousand
Moons ago, Li Po sits
Drinking wine on a bluff.

The Sun fades into blue mountains.
On the other side of the ball,
The sun scales the horizon.

Crickets tune up
And the first bats
Sail from roost to roost.

I think about Li Po drunk again
In the mountains, waiting for word
And listening to the wind songs.

Lost and alone,
He stares at the cup
And wonders when his pardon will come.

He holds a inkpot, scroll, and brush.
He listens to his skin fold
And his hair turn grey.

Between the mountains and stars,
A crow wheels over fogged red pines
Spiring in moonlight.

LiPo shakes wet peach blossoms
From his coat
And fills the cup.

Moonlight dances
On the golden wine
In the silver cup.

Who needs a clear head this night?
         ---o0o---

Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Poem: Turn

By Jack Brummet

1

The host and tenant lock
        In benign equilibrium.

2
Each valley followed by a slope.
         Every going followed by a return.

3
There is no relief without an ache,
          And no virus without a host.

4
Bricks tumble into the moat.
           The king's body hangs naked from the flagpole.

5
For a fleeting moment

            The condition for change exists.
                     ---o0o--

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Poem: The Quest

By Jack Brummet



It’s all one story—
                           A ragged
                                        shape-shifting tale

Of incredible coherence and constance,
                                                           Encompassing all you know,
                                                           All you don’t know you know,
                                                           And all you one day will know.
There is more
                     To be
                             seen,
                             tasted,
                             heard,
                             and felt
                                         Than can ever be known or told.

Our myths flourish and spread,
                              Person to person, 
                                          And the mysteries of the seas and skies and stars
                                                             Fill our collective conscience

With mystical scenes,
                      Quests, and tales of greatness.
                                           These myths, tales, and fables
                                                               Cannot be invented, ordered, or denied.

When you strip away
                       The stage flats, makeup, and costumes,

                                            It’s all one story
                                                                Starring our private heroes and dreams.
                        ---o0o---