grady’s psalm

July 18, 2019 / mbrazfieldm / 12 Comments

lost i wandered the dark hills

blind reaching out to nothing solid

cold rejection bitter earth swollen shut

feet buried in mud sucking me down

on one last morning clouds broke

so i could sense soft waves

cleansing the sickness from my sight

washing the Lightness through and over me

my body drifting ashore to ground

two feet gathering strength standing upright

as gentle grains of angel’s tears

did scrub my sins transformed into forgiveness

looking up with new bright vision

there was the green soothing pasture

peace whispered loud on holy ground

through it all now begins my restoration

moment of clarity

July 17, 2019July 18, 2019 / mbrazfieldm / Leave a comment

july evening warm humidly noisy

in the city i sit between Spring and Broadway streets

at a mall downtown where i’d like to fantasize Bradbury

could be found drinking coffee

looking to my left there are the kids joshing and cussing

rolling on skateboards zephyrs with iphones

to my right hipsters with credit cards today green means something else

micro chips smart chips designer chips vegan chips

i smile Mona L style and sip my Vietnamese coffee straight up

pigeons coo me out seductively with the waffle sound

of their aged wings dusty with the history of my time

here in this old new modern city

a tiny crack on the wall

by the fire department’s emergency pipe

holds my attention but i knit my brows

dainty lilac flowers

offered up to the most attentive student

the teacher dark green weed shows the little creatures

exquisite tiny intricate jewels luring in the bees

another universe within my urban home

i don’t like hot weather

sweat panting and stickiness

should only be for sex

but if the retiring sun hadn’t drawn me out

for the night i would have missed the buzzing of life

and random thoughts of HST soul madness and did JD really

shoot his ashes out of a canon

crazy kids at times trapped by the freedom of the mind

i’m working on an espresso now looking around

twirling my ankle like a cat’s tail

am i happy today i must be

today i’m not running

as much

periodic emissions

July 14, 2019 / mbrazfieldm / 5 Comments

i must’ve needed the pain you gave me

it started like a dream knowing always

that it wasn’t meant to be because of odds

i was so very screwed in the head

my compass smashed by consequential hammers of life

you were what i needed then

but you came not to me without your complications

we didn’t make love

i don’t even think i know what that is today

it’s not been explained in anything i ever read

least of all not there when you’d touched me

we fucked like animals and it was explosively good

and i’m not ashamed i have no regrets and i’d do it again

you cautious i free

all of which was good and partly wholesome

after my fifth reincarnation

i can now admit i was looking to die

you were the perfect trigger

cruel mean handsome strong smart older

and so very wrong for me

i the perfect foil

in the hunt that men love

gullible vulnerable presentable stupid educated young

i have aged since then yet i haven’t grown

i’m a perpetual socially functioning adult

with the soul of the song of the lone barn owl

in the dead of a rainy frosty northern night

as the minutes pass every now and again

they stab me slash me and run away laughing

with the memories of your bristly mouth

alternately between my lips and my breasts

my neck and my legs

your rough skinned hands clasping my wrists

to keep me from jumping

your honey yellow eyes who wept

with me at our miscarriage

and your graying temples

where the kind lies of indiscretions were confined

if i still smoked i’d light up

after some of the dreams i’ve had of you

i miss our chemistry animalistic

sloppy sleepless rough bitter

with the right amount of intensity and ambrosia

i miss your manly scent woodsy of earth like Adam

the reverberation of your voice

on my navel

number 48

July 14, 2019August 29, 2019 / mbrazfieldm / 8 Comments

scorched concrete broken bottles

bus fare not enough rain comes

huddle in the mass of 300 cots cries for help

a man is lost behind himself he now sees

in front of him are wading genteel lakes

his hands metaphorically cut off at the wrist

closing his eyes he dreams of hills

opening them again he seeks to seal a reality

that comes in colors mainly blues and blacks

his mind aloof with a potion of castles in a foreign land

where the weather is gentle and his feet kiss the sand

in the banks of a river holding the dusking sky

number 48 is called to sit at the chair

we don’t have room for you try back next week

he looks down and looks up again

out of the building to sidewalks of pain

three blocks from Wall street

the birds start to sing the river is placid

the hills are rolling skies are all yawning

the fire she roars inside of the castle a new king explores

at the Cecil

July 8, 2019July 8, 2019 / mbrazfieldm / Leave a comment

any road north at this time of the year is cold and wet

my neighbor said coughing out gray-white swirled

menthol smoke

your journey need not be postponed

if you can live here for more than 23 minutes

you’re used to the inclement weather

i squinted up at Jeannie her pin curls once golden

lighting up the strip joints along

the weary loosed boulevard were now dull piss

yellow and very very sparse

she couldn’t remember that she walked into my room

believing she was home

as Jeannie orchestrated a plan to cross her shriveled

go-go booted legs still i sat silent on the floor

crushing pills to help me think i was never one to

bother reading directions

by the morning when the birds bathe in the puddles of acid rain

and snails ever so slowly smear their way

to the dying ficus tree and in a moment of pre-contemplative clarity i look up again at my lady

her crushed velvet baby blue robe casketed what time separated from the wheat of life

then wild cat eyes darted past her nodded head to look out of the screenless cracked window

with Tom rasping something through the radio about

a downtown train

and a torn paperback about Lenny Bruce’s life on the milk crate shelf

i couldn’t help to wonder if we were also waiting for

Beckett’s

immutable Godot

private runt

July 6, 2019July 6, 2019 / mbrazfieldm / 10 Comments

another flame in the distance of a repetitious page

alarms my blood into a flow of fast thinking

she comes in the storm of her own pain

a slow thick fear the only match i have to counter

i now know not to longer linger by the crusted ashtrays

or lean on their solid walls of past injurious indiscretions

but rather crawl out of the darkness of the closet

a charming foxhole a Neverland of sorts with Barbies GI Joes

water colors and a one eyed teddy bear called Mike

after the storm lulls herself to sleep

and the lightening goes to some other town

to launch his cowardly thunder

we are all less than triumphant in dignity and resolution

and when all is calm the mirror under the storm

confirms that there is life yet

another successful recon mission

a blue awareness baptizes me

today i survived again

and am still breathing for a home

paging Dr. Burroughs, Dr. Burroughs please…

July 5, 2019July 4, 2019 / mbrazfieldm / Leave a comment

WS i don’t feel that well tonight

the stars are covered in dust and grime

and the corner store doesn’t have the Windex i like

i’ve listen to Thelonius on Bluetooth

and Ravel’s Bolero till the landlady came

to shut me up it wasn’t even that loud

i struggle Billy Bull Baby i see you

in dreams of course with your suits and balding

beautiful head but your brain really turned me on

i’ve been going back and forth for three days whether i should

go to Daikokuya’s for a ramen bowl but i just don’t have the gumption

i think i’m depressed again the tears run like Jesse Owens and i have no interest in making

them stop

W im in head first in the Interzone of my own doing

for hours i sit on the kitchen counter

looking out for the little brown birds who eat the last

pomegranates of the winter and wonder where the

first half part of my life went but i worry more

that i have no specific certainty where my last half is

going

can you read me a bed time story my favorite is “Green Eggs

and Ham”

work by mbrazfield 2001

7th eden

July 4, 2019 / mbrazfieldm / 6 Comments

opening my eyes for the first time

the old 3^rd street bridge is unrecognizable

it’s been a long 300 years since

i walked through here in my youth

when we had reached the peak of

refining weapons of mass destruction mostly us

my blue spirit spans from one end

to the other end of the tunnel

i appreciate nature’s knitted emerald life blanket

layered over you so tenderly melodious brook

the perfect Elysium reward for those soldiers

who laid down their generation defending you

sooty vestiges of city hall no longer

haunt the fledgling Eden i rejoice inside

as the trees speak a new creation

stones banks and plants sit in convocation

while they wait for the new children

peregrine

July 4, 2019September 16, 2019 / mbrazfieldm / Leave a comment

desert you look very pretty in your tender green veil

it’s been a while since i was here visiting you

inner struggle and rebirth brought me to your boulder bosom

i see my brothers the Joshua Trees have gotten taller

therefore waving more lost children toward your safety dear friend

oh and the hares and wood peckers they still look

me over with caution and pity they sense my spirit

is still shackled in some ways but they are right

i’m just a human mother Joshua but how are you

i’ve brought you great news there will be rain later

this evening that rock you say yes that will be

good shelter the tiny lizard queen is a great hostess

the breath of your slate tinged skies is beginning to

smell like wet earth just like my grandmother’s hair when

as a babe i’d grab fistfuls and put it in

my mouth yet i don’t know how i can remember

her we were both too young when she had to

go up to the silver stars above my head oh

mother Joshua did you tell Oma to come and visit

there you see she’s the one next to Venus smiling

at me hey little ants get off my cake here

i’ll place it by your hill take it to your

queen my regards to her and now my eyes focus

to see the splendor of the ocotillo fire red blossoms

held up to the peacock sky and i breathe deeply

dear Hester

July 2, 2019 / mbrazfieldm / 1 Comment

dear Hester i have to go keeping you has cost me a fortune worked my body down to bones selling my soul for you for one faint kiss and giving the devil iou’s was no good

i finally admit that your fingers and aura gently crept into my blood brook driving me to unfathomable pleasure only known by kings but when i couldn’t feed you more and more and more your anger at me was like a riptide

dear Hester you thrusted and thrashed my body against the anguish i caused others because i was a slave to you when you read this letter i will be rolling in it the unholy pain of heart break for having to let you go

fever itch spasm vomit crying out for air

as i sink into the black hole of my own doing because i thought you loved me

Hester i have to Hester don’t you understand don’t cry Hester you have offered me comfort and euphoric happiness when the world turned its back on me you never lied to me and you even let the nay sayers preach at me and how you were a no good harlot beast

but in exchange for your mirage like generosity i turned over my freedom to you i have a sickness Hester i have to keep running there’s a demon stronger than us Hester i have to leave

the time has come for emancipation from us three

my dear Hester

das lebewohl