Chase Her
The storm came
last night like
old pain. I cannot
remember the last
time it rained
and I stood out
in an open field
and waited for it.
The quiet fans
spun empty
in the wind and I
could smell the dead
fire black in
its pit. I waited
while the sky
turned gray.
I could smell
her in the trees,
and where lightning
struck earth
I saw her standing
there, her hair,
the dark blue
of her tattoo
in the foaming
sky. I waited
hours. I waited
but the rain
never came.
I could feel
the heat
blowing away,
the cold
front turning
hot green leaves
white. I saw her
rings in the coil
of a vine. I
waited but it did
not rain, not a
drop. The storm
came and went
like old pain.
The eyes shed tears and the heart is grieved but we will not say anything
Bodies are in disarray.
Limbs jumbled in wreckage.
We must sort them
and it must be right.
The body must be washed
and washed again and buried
before the sun goes down.
We touch every inch of every body.
Chant prayers and make small circles
of suds with a cloth on the still back.
First with soap, then with cedar.
No one cries at the final bath.
Dust her feet, knees
palms, forehead
with camphor as if
she has risen from prayer.
Wrap her in white linen
and cover her with earth.
A seed planted in eternity.
The street is quiet today.
We wash every inch of every body
Wash down stained cobbles.
The many stones.
Bleaching in the quick sun.
Like a forked tongue
sniffing out body heat.
The bloom of a car exploding.
Red wires duct taped to a belt.
We must bury the bodies fast.
They must be clean.
Counted when the smoke clears.
Sundown is closing like a dry dark mouth.
Some Things Stick With Me
Dad sits across from me.
His bruised hands shaking.
He says, You fall apart when you get old.
If I try hard I can make my voice
sound just like his.
Like I will sound
in thirty or forty years.
Before the tremors
his fingers manipulated pocketknives
and chewing gum wrappers
and drywall tape and mud.
But he has performed this
operation so many times,
his hands are as deft as a surgeon’s.
We are in a restaurant booth waiting for ribs.
He prepares a syringe and then the insulin.
Rolls the bottle between his hands to warm it.
Plunges the needle into his stomach.
So quick and practiced
I was the only one who saw.
It’s bearable because he remains
calm as it happens,
and we laugh at his frailty.
It’s out of our minds
as plates of meat arrive.
Even though we are falling apart.
It is happening to us all the time.
As if cremated
Burial, returning to the Earth, is traditional
but so is surviving the farm.
To leave it and return
plump and well-scrubbed by success.
To recall it as a little house
on a perfect plastic hill
in a cloudy snow globe
losing water to the years.
We leave pieces of ourselves wherever we go.
Sloughed cells, psychic residues.
Grandpa sawed a finger off
the hand that flagged down Norma.
She left a gob of flesh
up by the corn auger,
nearly gave an arm to the tourniquet
her sleeve became.
Leon damn near lost his mind.
Jeffrey will never leave, never tell
in old age how much it hurt
but how he shook it off,
went back to work, laugh lines
squeezing out a skosh of regret.
Those who saw his body in the field
were branded for an age with that look,
while the pale evening air scattered
bit by bit what remained
till even the red stain disappeared
tumbling up into trapped atmosphere.
Murder at the Big Pond
There is something falling to the ground.
In the woods.
The earth beneath it is a crime scene.
The screaming witness of cicadas
points to the frogs, who croak:
Two killed.
First the cricket
then the fish.
A flash of steel.
A hook
torn out with pliers.
Then the knife and the remains
thrown into a ravine.
It was good, they said.
The fishing was good.
BIO:
Tony Brewer is firmly based in Bloomington, Indiana, but has been writing and performing all over since the end of the last century.
He is a regular guest on WFIU’s The Poets Weave, which archives programs at http://wfiu.org/poetsweave/tag/tony-brewer.
In 2007 he received a fellowship from the Jason Shepard Greer and Lucy Kim Greer Foundation and the Bloomington Area Arts Council. His work has appeared in Flying Island, fiore, Red River Review, dcomP,and Poetry Midwest. In 2008 he won the Mounds State Park nature poetry award.
His book,The Great American Scapegoat, is available online at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Borders. He is seeking a publisher for a new chapbook manuscript.
In March – May 2009, Tony is touring Indiana with 3 other Hoosier poets, under the collective name “Reservoir Dogwoods.” Tour schedule and booking info is available at http://www.IndianaPoetryTour.com.
I always enjoy Tony’s work. He is one of the best spoken word artists/poets in Hoosier-land. Thank you for posting him.