chap book sales and exchange

The following chap book titles are currently available:

Seasonal Work (Poems, Don Brennan), 2005 48, pages, $5.00


Try Those Shoes (Poems by Don Brennan), 2006, 48 pages, $5.00
Excerpt: Let Me Fly(pg. 5)

whenever you can/Old World/just let me fly...don't send us to Heaven...please keep us here/around you/part of the fire and smoke/energy and love cycle/until you die yourself/and fly off to Planet Heaven...
Prelude To Uncertainty (Poems by Don Brennan), 2007,
44 pages, $5.00

Excerpt: Word Of Mouth(pg. 35)

The way his jaw swings
/somebody could hang it on a porch
/spend summer evenings waving to passers by
/...eagle with a broken jaw needing heroin now
/more than all the oil leaking out of the Euro into
/golden bathtubs of Dubai, and looka there, Dubya
/and Condi fluffing one another with baby powder
/about to give birth to twins...

Leavenworth Poets Summit V (Edited by Don Brennan) 2007, 42 pages, $5.00 donation to Central City Hospitality House.

Excerpt: Live Concert In The Tenderloin by Charles Curtis Blackwell(pg. 5)

A pigeon does that strut thing/Marco Polo traveler/S.F. beat...This brother brings the stereo tuned to a jazz station/To this concrete park with rod iron fence/freedom in the park/Catching the sound there of the/Pause, stand, listen/In the middle of hardcore deprivation...

Send cash, check or money order (please add $1 per book for shipping by regular mail) to:

Don Brennan Chapbooks
2959 26th Street
San Francisco, CA
94110.

NEW POEM:

GREYHOUND DRIFTERS
by Don Brennan

we come from everywhere
barbarian hordes
streaming among civilized people
through their streets

among
the civilized who sensibly
stay home
or travel when they must
by automobile and air

but never like us
who come from everywhere

determined, tickets in hand
to cross the land by bus

not just a quick trip
to Reno with
partying friends

not laughing aloud
passing secreted flasks
on the way to a night
of bells and
jackpots

oh, no
we’re serious
on the road
no bullshit existentialist
seekers
of meaning and truth
in the
mindful
Buddha-self
distance

a long way off
yeah
miles
and borders
between us and
whatever it is
we feel
we think
we need

and the bus is
cheap
also crowded
unpretentious
ascetic
slow
inconvenient

reminding us
not to take the
pursuit of happiness
for granted

we need time on
wheels to ruminate
to be crowded
among the proletariat
to learn our
place on this
earth

immigrants
outcasts
aliens
broken artists
loser poets
watching stars and
wheat fields
neon roadside bars

the rumbling passage
of our epoch
where we are not allowed
ever to belong

we the barbarians
no longer a threat
to empire
have thrown down
our arms

done with conquest
done with violence
taken by the smack of
freeway and back road
transcendence

a few of us
dress nice
some logos and jewelry
among the young, always

hopeful for romance
until the boredom
bears down, the
hours close in
and the cramped seats
seem to shrink

some unseen creature
of the night
stealing all leg room
each time we fall asleep

child wanderers
often join us
especially in summer
whining and giggling
learning the truths
of their own displacement
receiving the essentials
of barbarian education

brakes hiss
the engine growls
drivers gear down
pull in to change shifts
under moths and roaches
diving into naked lights
late at night

babies cry
our spirit guide packs up
goes home
leaves us to find our
destinies
on our own.

This poem will appear in my next book, Urgent, this fall. Please email for information about other titles (Amusing the Beast, Seasonal Work, and Extraordinary Pleasure). Thanks, feel free to comment and or post your own poetry on this blog. Don.