ROSES, IRIS, TULIPS

Aura

POETRY WORKS
Chap book Sales and Exchange
Don Brennan

NEW POEM:

ROSES, IRIS, TULIPS(for my wife, Aura)
by Don Brennan

roses, iris, tulips speak purple

lower their voices
to a deep red whispering

a private conversation
in the damp grass

certain yellow flowers
known as weeds
begin a wind song

we are brought back
to lives of struggle, of

keeping on, of taking up
ourselves again
in wordless places

how shall we allow the wind
to sing our songs

to speak to one another
in displays of color

as though our thoughts
were petals

connected to roots by
green stems

how to release pollen and
leaves into the
musical air

that is our unmarked question
for roses, iris, tulips

in their purple season, dropped
to deep red whispering

the way that flowers speak
and seeds spring airborne

in concert with insects
and birds and rattling winds

as if our thoughts were petals
and our roots a tangle of

garden spirits
beneath the damp grass

us leaning over
engaged in ancestral
conversation, our
faces to the sun.

The following chap book titles are currently available:
For more information email brennan.don@gmail.com

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...

SEASONAL WORK (poems by Don Brennan), 2006, 48 pages, $5.00
Excerpt: DETOUR pg. 24

For a creature locked out of a cafe, motivation is of
course irrelevant, as are doubts, self or otherwise...

it's not a question of departure. We need
shelter, the canine and I, a place to feel safe
before it's too late...

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...

TRACKS: Leavenworth Street Anthology (Edited by Don Brennan) 2007, 39 pages, $5.00
donation to Central City Hospitality House.

Excerpt: A Kind Of Death by Marsha Campbell (pg. 27)

We confine ourselves to a small room.
The small room of your mind.

Heavy curtains close in on us
and there is no light.

Your speaking voice was gathered
by the dust of the night.

Listening became a chore
until I could touch you no more.

I begged for you to open up the door.

Please send cash, check or money order (plus $1 for shipping by regular mail) to:

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