I will wait for the sun to make it’s way up the stairs. Then I’ll enter the place of underachievers, liars and thieves. Where else can defiance be so simple?
Once she lied about water. Twice she lied about silk. No one waited for a third time.
The house of shadow glows with a light within shade. Lost value finds itself on its shelves among the many books. When the moon escapes its cage, this is where it comes for safekeeping.
Michael H. Brownstein’s latest volumes of poetry, A Slipknot to Somewhere Else (2018) and How Do We Create Love? (2019), were recently released (Cholla Needles Press). Art by Karyn Kloumann, founder of award-winning indie publisher Nauset Press.
Within a winter squashed sky, a Frisbee of cloud, purple lit, frozen icons on the beach, a monster on the sand, a madman in the water, and nearby, a wintering wren crashes into the icy barrier of heaven. No, this is not a poem of winter beauty, nor does it have a spiritual aspect darkness and light, love in our soul. None of this is as important as the image of sunlit glitter flashing its nakedness across the lake, a boundary of anguish and glory. We come to the streets to watch the wind pick up dead brown matter, two honey locusts drowning under the weight of dead leaves hanging from every branch as if they were all of the bats men murdered before they realized they, too, were not demons.
Michael H. Brownstein has been widely published, including in The Café Review, American Letters and Commentary, Skidrow Penthouse, Xavier Review, Hotel Amerika, Free Lunch, Meridian Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, The Pacific Review, Poetrysuperhighway.com and others. His chapbooks include The Shooting Gallery (Samidat Press, 1987), Poems from the Body Bag (Ommation Press, 1988), A Period of Trees (Snark Press, 2004), What Stone Is (Fractal Edge Press, 2005), I Was a Teacher Once (Ten Page Press, 2011) and Firestorm: A Rendering of Torah (Camel Saloon Press, 2012). His latest volumes, A Slipknot to Somewhere Else (2018) and How Do We Create Love? (2019), were recently released by Cholla Needles Press. Carolyn Monastra is a Brooklyn-based artist, activist and educator. Her recent projects, The Witness Tree and Divergence of Birds focus on climate impacts on people, landscapes and wildlife.
Global Poemic 