Just Now
Grant us more time,
that we may someday
figure out that we are
wasting our time by
worrying about time.
It’s much harder than
it sounds. And judging
by that opening stanza
it sounds pretty hard.
But we must do this.
We must realize that
biting our fingernails
over what comes next
is little more than the loss
of a good fingernail or two,
since what comes next
never seems to arrive.
We turn that corner
and it’snowagain.
Just like it was
nowback then.
We keep doing this.
And that ol’ trickster,
time, keeps not being
the past or the future.
And we keep being
confused by all this.
And so, we’re never
quite here for the now
that needs us so much.
Young Soldier
You left home so full
of fear, and yet, a vague
sense if invincibility.
But now, years later,
what you saw there—
what you came to know
but not understand—
possesses you in a way
they could not have
prepared you for.
And though they pay
for your education,
you’re not learning
what you need
to become
whole again.
But we are here.
And we appreciate
what you did for us…
what you’ve endured
that you can’t, yet,
talk to us about.
And when you wake
at 3:00 am confused
about the enemy…
we are on your side.
We want to help with
this. The tougher war.
The one they may not
have warned you about.
The one you did not
see coming.
All the poems on this page are copyrighted by Nathan Brown and have been published in books by Mezcalita Press, LLC.
What Holds
I may not be the poet
that saves the world…
but… I have a vague idea
of what would happen to it
if the poets ever threw it in.
Even the ones who go unread
are some part of the thin thread
that holds this thing together.
And even those who refuse
to read them understand
what the ocean’s bed
does for the ocean.
How, so often, it is
some unseen promise
that keeps it all from falling.
A Hymn of Praise
When the tight muscles
and June-tanned limbs
of a woman pull you into
her bursting garden of a body,
your gratitude must be sacred.
Go and grab your best tools.
Rip out every warped plank
and rough splintered beam
from the dry-docked vessel
of your long-waning faith.
Build her a holy sanctuary
that will carry the praises
of her pristine beauty
back to its source.
Sing hymns to lift her
above the cruel confusion
of a world filled with liars
and barely breathing men
who trade soul for biology.
Then recite as your liturgy
that the jewel of her face
and finely sculpted form
are the very things divine
design had in mind.
Nevertheless, It Moves
~ Galileo, 1642
You took away our center,
displaced us, moved us away from
the command post of God’s universe,
then you stuck some bright star,
a burning ball with no soul,
there in our place instead.
How did you think the cardinals
and bishops would react to the news,
after they’d gone to all that trouble
having their elaborate gowns tailored,
not to mention the huge expense
of those great and gaudy hats?
Maybe at sixty-nine you saw a certain
allure in the conditions of house arrest.
I’m in my late forties, and I’ll tell you,
it’s crossed my mind a time or two.
Maybe you saw more in that telescope
than you were prepared to tell us.
Either way, the more I mull over
your defiant last words,
the more I want to say them out loud
to everyone I meet.
iLone Together
The other night,
over a quiet dinner
at the Snack Bar
on South Congress,
my wife and I became
those people sucked into
the narcotic glow of iPhones.
Talking, not quite to each other.
Smiling, not quite at each other.
It lasted less than a minute.
But I’m still, days later,
sad about it.
Neruda’s Garden
When the soldiers flooded Neruda’s garden
with their orders, that night on Isla Negra,
the poet turned them on their heels
from the top of his stairs
with one careful phrase…
There is only one danger for you here: poetry.
And so it is, I’m reminded,
some poet in the Middle East
lost his hand today, which
makes me sad how safe I am
in America these days.
The worst they would do here?
Tap my phone? Monitor emails?
Or maybe peek at my books,
which worries me very little
when it comes to a politician’s
skills with literary interpretation?
Capitol Hill has forgotten this power.
They don’t know where to send the soldiers.
They’ve lost the coordinates for the garden.
But I am at the desk upstairs, writing.
And the garden is here outside my window,
filled with fellow citizens sipping lattes
and driving Toyotas.
And I am trying
to become dangerous.
Existential Solstice
This—the day that offers
the least amount of light—
rates as my favorite of the year…
this day and the hundred or so
that fall right before.
Nothing too philosophical about it,
except maybe that I smell more beauty
in the winter of things.
Spring tosses out dangerous promises
like rose petals at a white wedding.
But autumn’s slow leak into December
teaches us to hold hands
as we come to grips with endings…
with where the inevitable swings
of the planet’s axis are taking us.
Little Jerusalems
Has all my education,
scrutiny and cynicism,
come to this lamentation?
Oh God, forgive us.
Please grant us healing.
We cry out for peace . . .
not only for the peace
of Jerusalem, but all
the little Jerusalems
of our hearts. Their walls
tumbling down all over
again, crumbling stone
by stone, pushing down
the dead, dusty layers
of past cataclysms.
The Sign
She comes in—tanned, tight jeans,
bleach-blond hair down the back,
blue eyes and too much makeup—
with a baby on her hip. And I’d
decided already what this poem
was going to be about, when she
sits down across from what looks
to be her father and begins to sign
with her one free hand. He smiles
and signs back—hands rolling effusively,
lips moving in a soundless poetry.
Their gazes trade loves back and forth.
The baby’s eyes glow in the wave
and trickle of mom’s fingers that must
look like birds close enough to touch.
And the trusses of my preconceptions
begin to buckle. The edges of prejudice
begin to crumble like dry toast…
and… I have made a mistake.
I want to go over and apologize,
but I don’t know the sign for that.
