All contents copyright Mark Brunke. Any content may be shared, published, or used in a non-commercial or editorial medium with attribution.
it was a year
Do we find the missing?
no easy way through tomorrow
O Black Sun
the history of water
For the physical sky
there is a sacred sky
For the physical earth
there is a sacred earth
For the physical love
there is a sacred love
For the physical body
there is clay mixed with water
and you're coated in a second skin
that dries in the sun, a deep red
turns light brown, cracks
and peels, and your naked
and covered in dust, wind
bristles, wearing myth
in eternal return.
With your forefinger of your left hand
you touch your tongue and draw
an eye on your forehead
as the sun rises
and my deep voice, wordless
before your illumination,
is wordless before
your illumination.
I make sad distributions
Of property
To feed
Such things
As pieces
I make a hand of musings
For inspiration
She is distant
And it's still
Still the only thing
I can draw paint from
And so I draw
Nothing
That's the evidence
Of something
ghost dancer giving thanks
a history in short wherein love lies
The Muses
The Men-Think
the debris
she left was gathered,
given implication, and
a faction.
A war
on memory,
this war.
Shrapnel,
a word floats
a parade
inside
a bandaged head.
Calliope
The fear is coming back
into particles of light.
Erato
In December light
Simple little glue, blue flies,
eight days to get
straight, I'm
waiting on Tuesday.
We muse upon
their liberty, a ruse
of sovereignty, careless
in our salvation dispenser.
Clio
The noisemakers wandering up
a Persian landscape.
Six thousand one years
back to Zoroaster,
twenty six point four degrees
twisted
against the sun.
Six thousand Year Ones
back to Zoroaster,
and there she stands
by the color TV.
Urania
What half would I have been?
The sphere is coming
back into particles of light.
Polyhymnia
The Mother nurse, she is standing
by the color TV. From
where I am looking,
air is nowhere,
but there is
air in everything.
Euterpe
The head
is a receptacle, the mind
is a wire, listen
and you will figure out
why: There
is where I am from,
and then There is Me,
and then There is Everything.
I heard the egg screaming
the secret name of God.
Melpomene
I am listening
to the desert sea.
The sound is pieces
of conflict sculpted
on transportable
insurance beds.
Half-lives of radiation TV.
I wonder which half I would have been?
Thalia
Where were my welds
and my mounds, my wounds
of Vietnam? Why did Americans
not bring home a poetry
of the mountains
and quiet rivers? Why was it
only the wreckage and Eagles?
It flies under me,
a war
on memory,
This war.
A war on memory,
this war
too will end. The fatherless
will look to the land,
not for a connection
but a conviction, a plea
bargain. They will be
dog bodies of the August moon,
a yield of the American sundown.
Game mercenaries lying crosswise
In the vast stage of history, epitaphs
for opinionated pandering.
Under the empires
their youth will be providence
but limbless, a viral video
easily forgotten
against the lineage of oil sacks
and moneyrooms.
Will they see their own mind, in a prison,
eyes lidless under a forgetting sky?
We are born turning revolutions.
The mirrors give us the illusion
of time as moving forward.
The interruptions in the lineal
system betray the circles we spin
until darkness becomes light,
everywhere, mirrors,
everywhere, the face of God.
And when we become blind,
we live, with our fear,
in the past, or we live
with our fear in the past.
Moving-On-To-Nothing
Everybody does
Something everybody knows
Everybody knows
Something everybody does
Everybody is a body that doesn't show
Nothing ever comes of joy
Love leaves you to die alone
Love leaves
Through all the seasons
Falling from a tree made of everything
Everything that came before
The years go by, there's nobody home
We end in memories of yesterday
Before moving on to nothing
I Only Know My Love By Few Moments
Life At First Sight Is A Broken Heart
Falling apart
An edge
In feather pieces
When food that begins
How did that become me?
Those lonely souls who have lingering
Lumbering days, space
To The Moon
I love you. To the Moon in the window,
Reflective of the grey horizon, in
The 27th house, in the corner. In
The violet sky, to the moon shine hidden,
Visible in backlit night, I love you.
I love you too, I'll never learn to fly.
Artificial Light
the anniversary impulse
is bred into
the soldiers heart...
in time nine beats
for eleven measures
and self dissappears
into the Arabian rhythm.
In rhythms and beats the orange
sun rises and violent
its violet edges
say good night
and good morning
to insurgents and surges
of soldiers playing and plying
the dead for mediated
affirmations of each other's
causation.
Under yellow sodium
artificial light
death came.
To each with ecstasy, sadness,
passion and numbness;
To each with pain,
forgiveness,
and hatred.
Two televisions sit facing
each other, transmitting
in different languages, filling
the air with sounds
mixing together,
playing to an ever
deafening crowd.
Sidewalk Infirmary Forgetting Its Own War
On our sidewalks?
Their eyeless
Destruction and left
Path of glue
On the cement progress,
The veins of Our Earth.
I think its clay red skin,
And gasoline eyes
In a limbless five-year old.
What Heaven will account
Such slaughter as righteous?
What would we do
To someone who did
That to a child
Who lived on the next block?
And nevertheless its satisfactory in War.
Human art is sculpted
On the dusty surface
Of history's table.
Occasional chips
In the lacquer reflection
Reveal the dead tree
At the center of
The construction.
Plastic raincoat
To keep out the termites.
More eyeless feeders.
We think they are so blind,
With carbombs and cellphones
And messages from God.
What is it the blind
See? A child of American
Ingenuity, the crust of
Western civilization
Burned on a dead surface?
Maybe an overflowing
Bodybag buried inside
The gates of Abu Graib?
Maybe War Criminals
Asking for a piece
Or maybe just peace
When the money runs dry?
Maybe politicians
Planting coalitions
On carcasses, a sure
Measure of success?
the oregon trail has failed
you in your
faith healing death,
God’s odd way to welcome
you to Antelope country.
The Way of the Rain
What language was that
Drifting across
The grey fabric
Of your leg?
The uncovered spaces
Near my eye
Still ache
From the dull wind,
Someone left a pin
In there after my birth.
The entire sky
Is a cloud,
The earth a skin,
a coagulant
Corpse. It's twelve
Pieces of skin.
What we think of as dirt
Is covering
worm meat in
radiated chicken,
pink and isolated,
Its surface burned
From a boiling torture.
Some veins sicken the air.
We make feathers
Into hemlock tea,
And all the questions are
dusted for wax works.
If I were to weigh the rain,
and lay down in your sleep,
all the decay would be lifted
From this infirmary.
Our Close Distance
And see that lamp in
Your flickering room?
What will you do, home
From the war? Sunlight
And summer ore, or
Bus stop and creeping
Mourning through the night before?
What will you do,
Bandaged in your skin?
I will drink lampwax
And leave terracotta dust,
My faith and wonder withering in
Shadows on couches and grass arenas.
Until a semblance of my substance
Emerges, resembling enough,
Just enough encaustic dust,
So you may trust your memory,
Unlock the door, and let me in
from this close distance.
Mothers Go To War
their hearts extended
in the sky
as their only Icarus
goes too far
in the song of some
black eyed sunflower lie
wax wings melting in the dust
and mothers go to war
in their windows
and streets
hearts beating loud
the drums of broken wings
Rye Grandmothers
Hallucinations, Recollections, and Illusions in Childhood
No. 1037,
Rye Ergot and Witches
lately the asphalt
was repaired with a fill-in
the new stuff is still wet
it sticks but doesn't stick
and has a little give when pressed
Last night's insomnia reading
Insomnia reading....
§81
Maiden in the mor lay,
In the mor lay,
Sevenyst fulle
Sevenist fulle.
Maiden in the mor lay,
In the mor lay,
Sevenistes fulle ant a day.
Welle was hire mete:
Wat was hire mete?
The primerole ant the,
The primerole ant the,
Welle was hire mete:
Wat was hire mete?
The primerole ant the violet.
Welle was hire dryng:
Wat was hire dryng?
The chelde water of the,
The chelde water of the,
Welle was hire dryng:
What was hire dryng?
The chelde water of the welle spring.
Welle was hire bour:
Wat was hire bour?
The red rose an te,
The red rose an te,
Welle was hire bour:
Wat was hire bour?
The rede rose an te lilie flour.
§82
Lulley, lulley, lully, lulley,
The fawcon hath born my mak away.
He bare hym up, he bare him down,
He bare hym into an orchard brown.
In that orchard ther was an hall,
That was hanged with purpill and pall.
And in that hall ther was a bede,
Hit was hangid with gold so rede.
And yn that bed ther lythe a knyght,
His wowndes bledyng day and nyght.
By that bedes side ther kneleth a may,
And she wepeth both nyght and day.
And by that bedes side ther stondith a ston,
"Corpus Christi" wretyn theron.
§83
Of on that is so fayr and bright,
Velud maris stella,
Brighter than the dayis light,
Parens et puella,
Ic crie to thee, thou se to me;
Levedy, preye thi sone for me,
Tam pia,
That ic mote come to thee,
Maria.
Levedi, flour of alle thing,
Rosa sine spina,
Thu bere Jhesu hevene king,
Gratia divina;
Of alle thu berst the pris,
Levedi, quene of parays,
Electa,
Mayde, milde Moder,
Es effecta.
Of kare, consell thou ert best,
Felix fecundata;
Of alle wery thou ert rest,
Mater honorata;
Bisek him with milde mod
That for ous alle sad is blod
In cruce,
That we moten komen til him
In luce.
Al this world was forlore
Eva peccatrice,
Tyl our Lord was ybore
De te genitrice:
With Ave it went away
Thuster nyth and comet the day
Salutis,
The welle springet hut of thee
Virtutis.
Wel he wot he is thi sone,
Ventre quem portasti;
He wyl nout werne thee thi bone,
Parvum quem lactasti.
So hende and so god he his
He havet brout ous to blis
Superni,
That haves hidut the foule put
Inferni.
The Weight
What is it with the child abused and grown
reviled . I'm still here, but I'm not.
The distance between here and there closes,