​I do not hold onto my anger
  Or disappointments
And that affects my poetry
 
Housing projects
Bullies
Single mom
Welfare
Brother's hand me downs
 
Abuses by boys not sure yet
How to treat a woman
  Or girl
With breasts already bigger than
                                    their experiences
Dreaming of breasts as comfort
Grabbing them for confirmation
 
Child for a husband
Who hit with words
Withheld emotion
  And conversation
  And the will to provide
Sex as a privilege
Not desire
  But punishment

A Feint Louse or

a faint sound a might be augury
I see you've got the door in
the door I see you in you installed
the door I see a slight
crack of light through really
around a crack of light always finds a way
a sound that niggles at memory the same
like the word surf or a conversation
eg. the salad bar on a saint's day after church
(affection pulling him into the room)
a fair or a fare or an affair or the
head raised again he sees her push her
hair from her face
another phone call from no one announced
fanning hot air from room to room
she sits at the desk across the room
flowers die in twilight

 

Via

her vagrant hammering on the dias on Sundays
the regimental flag forge-draped over the gate
and whether or not we're in the catalpa the cows aren't

after-hours in grasses perched on one leg
the blood draining past yes or no
any movement will be in its deliberation (delineation; linearity)
typically categorized
movement of the spine and shoulders
of long-lines tuna lost-waxed and crucified
spread out to dream on a grass set of tables
of salt and whiskers ointment-jarflies
a scam of eggs and bushspring desires

words catch in a crow's throat
feet catch at the mouth
bee
the cramped quartet's positions in a rising sea
sec
the levels of meaninglessness
in constructive desires

a fraction
a fiction

leafing through sunlight

 

Timothy Brennan is a poet, painter and woodworker who has lived and worked in San Francisco, in Brooklyn, and now in New Paltz, NY, where he has been renovating his old house for over twenty years with no end in sight. He has had poems published in The Chronogram, Awosting Alchemy, The Blue Collar Review, and in the 2011 and the 2014 edition of the Wallkill Valley Writers' Anthology. He assists in presenting Next Year's Words: A New Paltz Reading Forum. 

During our Spring weekly workshop meetings I offered writers, as a prompt, a list of the 50 state mottoes. Given the controversy about conferate monuments, I am posting the poem I found. The poem is followed by a list of the state mottos.

We pledge

To be rather than to seem
Like-minded confederates
Who in friendship swear
Thus always to tyrants
Big government and Washington overreach

We dare defend our rights
State rights to our peculiar institutions,
Our lost cause and battle flags,
Our monument avenues

We declare
The birth of a nation where

The people rule
Not dark-skinned foreigners
In a land they call home

With wisdom, justice and moderation
With all deliberate speed
As molasses flowed on proclamation day

While I breathe, I hope
Ready in soul and resource
To fend off audacity and uppity-ness
Dam mighty streams of righteousness

In God we trust
O, vengeful God, we are your people
Dedicated to agriculture and commerce
The harvest of cheap labor

Union, justice, confidence
Forever just us

By valor and arms


State Mottos:
North Carolina: To be rather than to seem
Texas: Friendship
Virginia: Thus always to tyrants
Alabama: We dare defend our rights
Arkansas: The people rule
Georgia: Wisdom, justice and moderation
South Carolina: While I breathe, I hope/Ready in soul and resource
Florida: In God we trust
Tennesee: Agriculture and Commerce
Louisiana: Union, justice, confidence
Mississippi: By valor and arms

I

After months or even lifetimes of doubting the beneficence

of the existence

of Dominus Benedictus

I rejoice this Sunday

feel smell see His goodness

golden green purple blue.

But today I can't comprehend anything Eternal except

death.

If indeed You are good

spawning spring streaming sun soothing souls

please Lord give me one sprig of lilac

from the pastel paradise of this reborning day.

Give me lilac wine potent

drown me

drop the purple curtain over

life's losses injuries injustices betrayals.

Give me lilacs Lord in a hundred crystal vases.

II

Lilacs Lord don't reek of death

like powered hands and polished fingernails

in a shiny mahogany coffin draped with a hundred roses.

Give me lilacs of life soft messages of life

if You love me if You exist

Dominus Benedictus.

Or is this enenchanted springday soft Mayday no more than

a token message of sympathy?

Promise me God

that this day will be an intimation

of promising flowering grace soon to come

and when I am full-bloomed fruit-filled flowing over,

then lilacs Lord place lilacs Lord

only lilacs on my grave.