~ Delta Poetry Review ~

Michael H. Brownstein

An Infinity of Sound

The lyrics of the throat singer

syphoning the grasp of cloud

away from clammy skin, souled

ice, sweetgum and bloodroot.

Is it not enough to build a pyramid,

a kiosk, an inverted dream catcher,

a nightmare of melody and psalm?

Nothing lasts now or later—

nothing is whole at the end of its time

and nothing is nothing where it exists.

his shirt attaches itself to his scars

No, this is not how the prayer song ends,

it has no ending, the kora playing on,

the shakaree, the great talking drum. shakaree

A performer gets ready to leave the stage,

but he cannot, the applause transfixing,

and when he tries to pull away,

the people standing at attention,

he remains a statue of what might have been

if he had been allowed to enter the stage

during a time of different footprints.

Childhood

I do not have the teeth meant for me,

nor do I have the long fingers of the accordion player.

Everything damp and saddened, grief spoken,

soft with cotton and fine linen.

Where do they hide the arm of the strongman,

the heart within the runt, the whistle

within the call of the olive-sided flycatcher,

the Australian mammal's rant of the phascogale,

a year old, dying in the one act orgy of its kind.

Still there is a redness to the air, a color

off-blue to a thread of sky, a wall with missing bone,

and at the crock near the broken cemetery,

a nest of empty fluff and four smashed eggs.

Within the glow of the eucalyptus tree

at the furthermost crypt to the north,

my five baby teeth and three knuckle fragments

stolen by the imp who collects

painted toe nails from neglecting mothers.