Current Writers 11

Michael H. Brownstein

BIO: Michael H. Brownstein has been widely published throughout the small and literary presses. His work has appeared in The Café Review, American Letters and Commentary, Skidrow Penthouse, Xavier Review, Hotel Amerika, After Hours, Free Lunch, Meridian Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, The Pacific Review and others. In addition, he has eight poetry chapbooks including The Shooting Gallery (Samidat Press, 1987), Poems from the Body Bag(Ommation Press, 1988), A Period of Trees (Snark Press, 2004) and What Stone Is (Fractal Edge Press, 2005).

Brownstein teaches elementary school in Chicago ’s inner city, studies authentic African instruments with his students, conducts grant-writing workshops for educators and the State of Illinois Title 1 Convention, and records performance and music pieces with grants from the City of Chicago ’s Department of Cultural Affairs, the Oppenheimer Foundation, BP Leadership Grants, and others.

YOU HAVE THE PERFECT EVERYTHING

You have the perfect everything,

But which am I?

Not the city snow

Gray and full of air.

Not the river

Thick with waste

And a lack of breath.

Not dawn’s first sunbeam

Over the lake, rolling like a log

Over the waves, the old gulls

Aware and searching

For that foolish fish

Rising to the surface

In search of the commotion.

The light in the sun warms the sky

After its first spring blizzard,

Everything melting,

Ice letting itself go.

WILD WEEDS THAT FLOWER

The carcass is a meadow.

Love slugs and crows,

Maggots and an incessant humming.

Tourniquets are made with these materials

And asphalt, teeth and metal sculpture.

Two edged keys open the jaws to brain beetles,

Broken egg shells and larvae.

Study the teeth. Study the sockets.

Study the break in the fur and skin.

There are seeds here, too, and the beginning

Of dirt, worms and snails, a web,

The fierce howls of flies unable to leave

Well enough alone and another spider

Welcoming them to its home.

LAVENDER

A gentleness in the lavender of touch,
Soft against another, sheets
Organically blue cool and full of clouds.
One day Cupid wakes to find his arrows stolen
Enters earth on footed wings.
Angry and puzzled, he finds them
In a park near a grove scattered and dull,
One shaft broken. In the trees he hears joy,
Good wine, beauty, a whisper of lips.
How trite. One lover fingering the palm of another,
A message so secret everyone knows its depth.
Touch comes in color, it’s that easy.
Cupid leaves with everything he has lost
Bits of his anger clinging to the grass
Flowering into large bosoms of rose,
Rosemary, lilies of the field, golden tulips,
A naturalness of water falling from a ledge,
Warm and comforting, trite like a French kiss.

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