Ron Bremner
Smoke rings like rumors
Smoke
rings like rumors
and dreams like stale cigarettes
in a cracked ashtray left behind
at the old apartment.
A trial of language
He
and his sister were variable antonyms.
Though both counted out their words,
only he tried to spell them.
She believed no tonic speech,
but the loudest of mumbles.
Neither
realized the climactic impotence of words
in time.
After
the shock of his terse death
she learned the language of gestures.
The parents still do not understand.
They seek words to trust.
We have tried, but
cautious eloquence does not fool them.
She will not talk to them.
She plans to survive.
JC has found religion, a poem in four parts
The Symbionese Liberation Army, more by its verve
has given Christina hope anew;
at least she seemed pleased
speaking fervently of her matriarchal communism
beneath the elevated tracks of the Harrison PATH train,
she looking far too pale and thin,
but lovely as ever nonetheless.
With prodding she admitted concern
for the pain and death in the SLA revelries,
though not for the stolen hard-earned bucks
of hard-working cab drivers like myself.
The shock of intersecting in this manner
with my long-unseen counter-culture dreamgirl
fortunately did not leave me speechless.
The jobless time in Seattle has not been good
for Chris.
She’s two years older and two years behind
where she should be; no one is writing
psychedelic feminism anymore.
Her once-snug jeans now struggle to stay up,
but to me, she’s still quite unmatched.
But far more crucial than all this of loves lost
and new-bought dreams
is the arrival of my train above,
for Truffaut awaits at the Bleecker Street Cinema.
Day for Night gobbles all smaller matters
when it comes to play in town again.
(1976)
Billy Joe has positioned the piano carefully
in the corner where, if he squeezes past the pingpong table,
he can reach it, but playing is painful in these poor acoustics.
Pip’s Lounge no longer keeps a piano, and so
Billy Joe prepares to enter a programming school
following in my profitable footsteps
as fulltime pragmatist and part-time poet.
He will play his beautiful melodies upon the 370/145
and, I still pray, before attentive crowds someday.
(1979)
Shari phones me late at night, though we have nothing to
say.
She needs to hear me pick it up, and I need to hear it ring,
she still not realizing that we’ll never meet again.
The brownest eyes and fullest breasts I’ve ever seen
are just as brown and full, at least in the honest memories.
But in the desperate, gasping escape from a past
of self-torture, despair, and her, my greatest failure,
I had to retreat into the real.
(1979)
JC does not pick apples in Washington State anymore.
He does not drive the #6 bus through the Lincoln Tunnel.
He no longer seeks Brother Maurice to sign
forms designating him a conscientious objector.
He does not hitch rides from me on Schuyler Ave,
Nor run across me at the Ridge Lounge.
He does run occasionally at Garrett Mountain.
It brings him closer to his Lord,
as does living again in his mother’s house.
John Cain has found religion, or rather
the Church has nudged with its rugged staff
one more innocent crying lamb
back into the tendered fold.
(1979)
We wanted so much to change the world.
We had the plans to change the world.
We had a need to save the world.
But the world didn’t want
Or need that saving.
This sweet young thing
This
sweet young thing
of the clenched fist breasts
dreams mightily of medio-
crity prostrate on an altar
before her eager knife; dubs
brightness the beloved eunuch
cherished, friend but never
ever to be desired; all
the don’t knows and never’d
guesses shimmy through her shivers
but brightness drools, hungrily
lusting denied melons,
not even satisfied
with understanding.
Blue dawn
Blue,
blue,
blue is my love,
present of the rise,
Vanishing quickly like the dove
falling through the skies.
Blue,
blue,
blue is my love,
waking in the breeze,
Humming as she fades above
her thousand reveilles.
Blue,
blue,
blue is my love,
stolen by the rise,
Humming as she fades above
her thousand lullabies.
Though both counted out their words,
only he tried to spell them.
She believed no tonic speech,
but the loudest of mumbles.
in time.
she learned the language of gestures.
The parents still do not understand.
They seek words to trust.
We have tried, but
cautious eloquence does not fool them.
She will not talk to them.
She plans to survive.
has given Christina hope anew;
at least she seemed pleased
speaking fervently of her matriarchal communism
beneath the elevated tracks of the Harrison PATH train,
she looking far too pale and thin,
but lovely as ever nonetheless.
With prodding she admitted concern
for the pain and death in the SLA revelries,
though not for the stolen hard-earned bucks
of hard-working cab drivers like myself.
with my long-unseen counter-culture dreamgirl
fortunately did not leave me speechless.
for Chris.
She’s two years older and two years behind
where she should be; no one is writing
psychedelic feminism anymore.
Her once-snug jeans now struggle to stay up,
but to me, she’s still quite unmatched.
But far more crucial than all this of loves lost
and new-bought dreams
is the arrival of my train above,
for Truffaut awaits at the Bleecker Street Cinema.
Day for Night gobbles all smaller matters
when it comes to play in town again.
(1976)
in the corner where, if he squeezes past the pingpong table,
he can reach it, but playing is painful in these poor acoustics.
Billy Joe prepares to enter a programming school
following in my profitable footsteps
as fulltime pragmatist and part-time poet.
and, I still pray, before attentive crowds someday.
(1979)
She needs to hear me pick it up, and I need to hear it ring,
she still not realizing that we’ll never meet again.
The brownest eyes and fullest breasts I’ve ever seen
are just as brown and full, at least in the honest memories.
But in the desperate, gasping escape from a past
of self-torture, despair, and her, my greatest failure,
I had to retreat into the real.
(1979)
He does not drive the #6 bus through the Lincoln Tunnel.
He no longer seeks Brother Maurice to sign
forms designating him a conscientious objector.
He does not hitch rides from me on Schuyler Ave,
Nor run across me at the Ridge Lounge.
He does run occasionally at Garrett Mountain.
It brings him closer to his Lord,
as does living again in his mother’s house.
John Cain has found religion, or rather
the Church has nudged with its rugged staff
one more innocent crying lamb
back into the tendered fold.
(1979)
We had the plans to change the world.
We had a need to save the world.
But the world didn’t want
Or need that saving.
This sweet young thing
of the clenched fist breasts
dreams mightily of medio-
crity prostrate on an altar
before her eager knife; dubs
brightness the beloved eunuch
cherished, friend but never
ever to be desired; all
the don’t knows and never’d
guesses shimmy through her shivers
but brightness drools, hungrily
lusting denied melons,
not even satisfied
with understanding.
blue,
blue is my love,
present of the rise,
Vanishing quickly like the dove
falling through the skies.
blue,
blue is my love,
waking in the breeze,
Humming as she fades above
her thousand reveilles.
blue,
blue is my love,
stolen by the rise,
Humming as she fades above
her thousand lullabies.
