SORROW, MAGIC, HUNTING AND GATHERING

HUNT, GATHER
by Don Brennan.

as the ancestors gathered
nourishment from the Savannah
we embrace psychosis

this surrounding madness
arms outstretched
gather it

help one another pack it
back to the condo
wire it in, hard-drive it

God so loved the world
arms outstretched
against His tree

We so love the world
that confines, cages
imprisons Our children

butchers them
arms at odd angles
akimbo, bulleted

sainted ones continue
filling bassinets
see their little

faces in the strollers
rolling around the globe
protected by mothers
fathers

we can teach the babies
war, drunkenness
rape

our accumulated
psychoses
lie in wait

or we can hunt
and gather
ourselves

teach the babies
love.


SORROWS 7/15/07
by Don Brennan

sorrows rising on the horizon
a dawn of limited
visibility

don’t need it now, yet
up they come
cold, indifferent

prow of a mystery ship
churning the sea

trailing a wake away from
you and me

plowing the waters

all that power
in our direction

careless as a belligerent
innocent

if sorrow had eyes, they’d be
empty

but the course is set
no need to see

no need for us to
back away

running in sand
plowed up to
our feet

lay us out
crush us up the middle

what do sorrows weigh
but a ton a foot

a hundred ton
football field

high enough
to obliterate sky

furrowing our
chest

saw it coming
toss them aside

still able, ourselves
to rise.



MAGIC AND MIND
by Don Brennan (7/18/07)

reason, a sparrow
on a fly by

magic crawls away
in panic

a startled caterpillar
bird wing shadows

a hundred legs scrambling
no peace in Nature

a belly hungry for
caterpillar meat

looking to swoop
peck, taste

swallow the larva
disrupt metamorphosis

solve the mystery
the problem

burp, digest
the flesh

poop, then fly
away

try to catch
the butterfly