Glen Brunson

Glen Brunson Mar 2013

some days
our hearts are barely ghosts
grabbing at smoke

Or maybe I'm too shallow.

Glen Brunson Mar 2013

they ask what
    little sisters should
        why the water is blue when deep
        how the stones skip uncaring
    on the surface

    on the surface
  we are tied through bloodline
vein to vein, spine to spine
retched to form through
a single woman in 45 hours
    of neonatal grace
        echoing anything but silence

         they are a quiet pair of scissors.
            mirrors, in perfect function
          balanced from present lifetimes
        of subtle practice
      shimmering in sequence
   one glammer, one smitten
echoes of anything but silence

I am that third thing
the cog on wings
mildly pressed between two
perfectly pounding structures
smiling in the buffer
I am drafting,
a stick on the ripple.

Glen Brunson Mar 2013

To the girl who kept me up all night with a suicide attempt.

this cup of tea
is dedicated to her butterfly wrists
opened chrysalises
3 hours before the dawn
would have found her
spread-winged, imitating lotus.

Glen Brunson Mar 2013

A Letter from The Collective

our sky is spectrum

there is the peace of
a lake’s night-face
in our presence,
the ratchet of a thousand
orbits encircled-
wholly intersected through the palms.

a collective vibrato.

this unmasked, awesome wave of
silent happenstance
gathers kneading masses
to lay deadly beneath
oaken inscription,
cast about the heavens
in splinters of light.

our shaken, fevered dance
does not separate the halves
we are corpus callosum,
a passing stab embodied,
writhing jazz rhythm
untouched from pre-production.

so slice us into maps.
paste our highwayed bodies
in the grinding gloom
we will be your compass rose
when the pedals
are no longer smooth.

we will grace the dirt
when oceans are no comfort.

the palm-lines of healers
and street urchins
are the same.

child,
this anthem is your name.
if blood runs black,
a frame collapsed,
will we sing over your grave.

Glen Brunson Feb 2013

Frostfinger

I promise you,
this chest cracks
from the force of my gasp
scrabbling every ounce of
frigid mist I can
warming it with time,
face turned black from pressure.

wait for the release, darling.

it may not thaw
the distance between poles
but I can whistle something sweet
just like you taught me
when the summer was a running river
and our hearts
were not these
frostbitten bird wings
strung out across the dunes

I burnt my harmonica
in the coals you left me
it could not play the blues

we are grey
with nothing between the static
a monochromatic flicker
on long-dead television sets
shattered-glass hope breath
sputtered out in the slip-shape of smoke

my wrists are broken
from digging you out of yourself
so

let’s take a minute to mourn.

let’s see if I can hold the soft silence
on my sharpened shoulders
and keep it from breaking

bring out your paints.
show me how the only thing I couldn't see
was your brushstroke
your choke-face
your pathways
your patched-up heart strings
those holy rolling white things,

I would give my backbone
for another look at your insides.

Glen Brunson Feb 2013

Hello, I am a Rock. (It hasn't always been this way.)

the grit
found its way
into everything,
until she was smooth,
until there was nothing but grey
roundness
like so many pebbles
rolling down the grassy incline
of childhood swallowed up in angry nights.
that dawn
hid from us perfectly,
but there was no sleep.
with lily eyes and patchwork breath,
we waited on the light that never came.
until you left
when I became cold stone.
melted my bones into cliff-face.

there is no light here.
I am crevice.
I am cold.

Been writing a lot recently. Not sure why. I'm sure I have a good reason. (Look, I made pretty shapes with the lines)

Glen Brunson Feb 2013

Blowhole

he fed his best words to
a beluga whale
in the boyish hope
he could sail the beast
over salty horizons,

to mirror the world
in perfect halves

but he drowned
in the blowhole blast
after realizing
they were not enough.