Watermark

Bell

 

once I imagined the bell
all the rest came easily
the young man in the burgundy coat
lilies tolling their scent in the garden
pale moon over narrow streets, it all
dreamt itself into tall dark trees
shivering with sparrows and wind

the wind in the shutters
the nervous courtyard
something sacred at the altar
the pale child in her ghost dress
the book with its gossamer gilded pages
its thin black-pebbled cover
this docile child, butterfly wings

the old man bent into his cane
shuffling, shuffling, the pale moon
it all came quite easily, then
the moon walked into the mountains
the stars fell the old man fell
the lilies dropped their thick petals
the young man became a branch

scratching, scratching the window
the shutters opened their louvers the fan
making its ocean sound it all became
lightness and bright stripes on the wall
morning morning and I step into the garden
thick slow beat of pelican wings
into a cloud of pale moths

   

For an audio post of this poem, go here.

~sb years ago 

 

#poem 

once I imagined the bell
all the rest came easily
the young man in the burgundy coat
lilies tolling their scent in the garden
pale moon over narrow streets, it all
dreamt itself into tall dark trees
shivering with sparrows and wind

the wind in the shutters
the nervous courtyard
something sacred at the altar
the pale child in her ghost dress
the book with its gossamer gilded pages
its thin black-pebbled cover
this docile child, butterfly wings

the old man bent into his cane
shuffling, shuffling, the pale moon
it all came quite easily, then
the moon walked into the mountains
the stars fell the old man fell
the lilies dropped their thick petals
the young man became a branch

scratching, scratching the window
the shutters opened their louvers the fan
making its ocean sound it all became
lightness and bright stripes on the wall
morning morning and I step into the garden
thick slow beat of pelican wings
into a cloud of pale moths

   

For an audio post of this poem, go here.

Homesafe

 

I want to tell you 

how spring feels

in Alaska, next 

to the sea,

with aspen & cedar

with eagles & gulls. 

 

I want to tell you 

how spring feels

here, beside 

the river, with spruce 

& pine, with robins

& crows. I want 

 

to tell you how 

this sky stretches 

between mountains,

how it blues. 

 

Life teaches grief here. 

May snow takes the lilacs. 

 

I want you to know how my body 

cries. I want to tell you how 

your touch lifts me out 

of myself. I want to tell you how 

words catch in my throat

how I choke 

on them. 

 

I want to tell you 

what I want to hear, 

how my ears long for it, 

how I listen. 

 

You tell me you don’t understand. 

I want to tell you how to understand. 

 

I want to tell you how I feel when you hold me, how it’s homesafe. 

I want to tell you who I am, how I became. I want to tell you what I see 

when I look at you, that you do not see 

when you look at yourself. I want you to know 

how it feels 

 

to love you. I want to tell you what it’s like to be old, how it feels to fall, how the bed holds me down in the morning. 

 

I want to tell you the colors of sky at sunset, the gold, the purple, the green. 

I want to tell you the smell of horses, of hay, of barns. The sounds 

of grasses swaying in wind. 

~sb  may 02019

 

snapshot poem 13 january 2021

 

sleep in grief

wake in grief 

     grief at the doorstep

 

~sb january 2021

sleep in grief

wake in grief 

     grief at the doorstep

 

~sb january 2021

questions

 

How does the writer's brain work? It is a bewilderment to me, why it must be this particular word, or that particular image. How is it that now, in this time of several national and global crises, I emerge from sleep holding to this juxtaposition: 

    i wake 

    my face is wet 

        the blue heron stands 

        one foot 

        on a slate roof 

 

~sb January 2021

How does the writer's brain work? It is a bewilderment to me, why it must be this particular word, or that particular image. How is it that now, in this time of several national and global crises, I emerge from sleep holding to this juxtaposition: 

    i wake 

    my face is wet 

        the blue heron stands 

        one foot 

        on a slate roof 

 

~sb January 2021

Taking It Apart

 

First they took the tonsils. 

Then the appendix & that extra 

tooth. Then they straightened 

my eyes & blinded me with light. 

 

Next an ovary, then the other  

& the uterus & the cervix. Finally 

the gallbladder. Then they rebuilt 

the knee. No knives have been 

 

at me for years, but if they could 

take this fatigue, I’d let them. My 

heart has been taken & taken 

apart many times. Stitched back 

 

together by inexpert hands.

Sometimes the threads unravel. 

 

~ sb

you must depend upon

 

 

the solid ground 

   though it’s been known to shudder 

   to open without warning into great rifts 

   to offer sudden sinkholes & eruptions of fire 

 

daydreams, nightdreams, the tenuous braid of imagination 

history as written between the stars 

the upside-down lies your eyes tell you, day after day 

 

the sky, its blue breathable air 

   though it’s been known to thicken with smoke 

   with the exhalations of furnaces and exhausts 

   with too much rain for the cracked ground to swallow 

 

the smell of coffee in the morning, the taste of cinnamon 

the silence behind, beneath the crackle & spit, the roar of the city 

the rise of light in the east, its fall in the west 

 

the intricate interweaving of insect & animal & forest 

   though it’s been known to unravel in a cascade of death

   to leave only fossils & devastation 

   the slow re-evolution of merging cells 

 

––

sharon brogan 

november 02015

THE ARMY OF GOD

A hard morning, after a bad night.  

Too soon after waking, I read an article from the Atlantic: THE ARMY OF GOD COMES OUT OF THE SHADOWS

These christians are apparently Old Testament christians. 

Where is my grandmother’s Jesus? He is not mentioned. It seems that his kind, gentle, socialist, social-justice message is not welcome. Forget turn-the-other-cheek. Forget love your neighbor as yourself. Forget welcome the stranger who may be an angel. 

THIS IS WAR.

And I am the enemy. I and those I love; those who, Christian, or not, absorbed and accepted the messages of my grandmother’s Jesus in our midwest youth. 

“. . . the movement’s central ideas . . . include the belief that God speaks through modern-day apostles and prophets. That demonic forces can control not only individuals, but entire territories and institutions. That the Church is not so much a place as an active “army of God,” one with a holy mission to claim the Earth for the Kingdom as humanity barrels ever deeper into the End Times.”

I too believe we are “barrelling ever deeper into the End Times.” I do not blame demons, or satan. I blame us. We did this. We do this. These fiery and devastated hells we see on our high-tech media are the consequences of our own actions, our own greed. 

And these Old Testament christians are not exempt from blame.  

metaphor

 

every day thousands of humans 

and other creatures die 

by bomb, bayonet, starvation 

 

every day women 

are raped and mutilated 

children beaten and abandoned 

 

every day humans 

push buttons pull triggers sign papers 

that result in the deaths 

of uncounted hundreds of thousands

 

every day we humans 

close our eyes and turn away 

 

this is not metaphor 

every day 

my heart breaks 

 

this is metaphor

~sb

08/12/25

there is no good news

 

this room this bright quilt 

winter waits on the other side 

of these dark windows 

elsewhere cities 

in dust and rubble 

everywhere cities 

 

on fire all this has nothing 

to do with me the naked child running 

through fire has nothing to do with me 

these buildings become dust 

have nothing to do with me

I sit on this bright quilt 

 

blue and white and red 

patterns of flowers and thread 

I drink from my modern porcelain 

blue and white cup a pale 

version of Italian cappuccino 

what is true? who is to blame?

 

I open the bedroom window winter 

is coming as it has here for many 

generations of my line of which 

I am the last these are not my 

children they have nothing to do 

with me

 

who is innocent? they carry 

small broken bodies of children 

holding shoulders holding knees 

the bodies bent loosely heads 

tipped back limp arms dropping 

in the evening I turn down the heat 

~ sb

The Bedroom

It’s a large room, as bedrooms go. It has two double windows. The shutters are closed. The bed is metal, painted blue. It’s a narrow bed, neatly made. An old radio stands on the bedside table. The only sounds this room hears are from that radio. 

The floor is golden oak, showing its age. The walls, too, are expressive, with cracks in the plaster on every side. The ceiling boasts a schoolhouse light and fan, turning slowly this autumn day. The lamp on the bedside table was an oil lamp, with a chimney, electrified now with a flickering bulb, a hint of the original flame. There is no soot on the glass chimney. 

Books and papers are piled on the bedside table, the only suggestion of disorder. Even the medicines are labeled and neatly organized in lines. If a cat leaves fur on the quilt, there is no sign of it.