Six Poems

by Brandon Shane

Savagery

My savagery is

I walk still among savagery,

let axes chop

boys in half,

say this is a place

where boys get

chopped in half,

where the deranged

seek mirrors

we reflect together.

I sit among them,

I am none of them,

I accept their sick

and watch them

become terminal:

the pedestrians

say surely I am

worst of all savages.

Rubbing blood

off his cheeks,

he says my poetry

is to be worshiped.

I tell him alcohol

is necessary

for the gash

he made

on his head,

and he says

with obsessive

relief

no one else

talks to him

like a normal

person.

Grave of the Dead Poet

Lost in Osaka

I stood under dormant

sakuras taking pictures

of bit-tongue traditions,

having flowered culture

I offered an expired passport

half-breed forever half-measures,

long devoted a life

to writing poetry

fabricated by poetry

erased by readers.

After a drunk night emailing

a close friend

I learned there was a dead

Japanese poet

among the plum blossoms

named Nishiyama Sōin,

as she took interest in

who could be worth

an inscribed slab in presence

of Sugawara no Michizane,

and I wanted to vomit

spit blood onto cobbled trails,

Tenmangū shrines, torii gates,

forget my red birth

regarded as Japanese

in America

American in Japan.

I am not anything but

sand apart sedimentary rock:

at best a young poet will

see their meek reflection

in timeless disinterest,

long after a throwaway poem

enslaved an academic.

All of us grossly useless dislocated

suicidal for a humanity

without words: this slab here

our tangible success.

The Tragedy

My reflection is

hideous as ever,

yet my gunman has

sold his bullets.

Is it awful

I still love you

wet arsonist,

who alone seamed

mirrors and dreams.

Cross an

unfilled chair,

from red leather

rises sulfur.

The pious penetrated

you with Christ.

I am a future suicide

contorting confession

forcing the priest

to forgive,

distilling spirit

wild juniper.

You would sit

if they-cruel angels

did not carry you

so high.

If man

did not sentence

my ugliness

to crucifix.

Now I limp

motel to motel

stealing consent

from bed-sheets,

wondering if you

are getting better

without me.

Anhedonia

I was among tourists, all morning

the flowers could not manage

any difference. Their laughter, wisteria,

yellow buttercups, rows of bitter woods.

In bed, I watched drills, forklifts:

the sky was empty of birds

the sky was blue and cloudless.

I could not manage any difference.

The trees here, the trees there,

and how little interest means.

I graze walls, tall grass,

lay aside dandelions,

their style is all the style

that has ever been.

Let me die

in a field

of posies.

Confession

It is the quiet of the night,

deer betrayed by the bullet

forgetting all that has thrusted,

men lorded over bodies,

alcohol that has poisoned said bodies,

and relatives idle on rocks

thrumming sharp sticks,

as she stares at the ocean

dreaming what may have been,

all things that happened to you

sit quietly among ferns,

the drunk metal underpass

drivers void and meaningless,

clothing lost among dirty sheets

carpets unfamiliar,

eyes only alive in dreams,

your name a secret

written by tragedy

among everything,

for the sake of the trees

let us pray fawns have

coarse memory

that death is eternal,

that saints are not carved into wood

and their tears

retain loneliness.

I sit on spires

spitting blood born to meet you

at an undeserved time,

the inauthenticity like plaster

and we disdain fake blood,

men who have never felt sorry

meeting the priest on Saturday afternoons,

all men are liars but we

learn it last,

how embarrassing

to have survived this long,

picture books fill a desire

to run far enough

thirst at places

we would like to die,

a giggling pugilist

or cocksucker at last resort:

here now, here now

here now.

And yes

the night is over

the ferns are drunk

there is a dead man

wading on water

like silk

the dawn is living wild

inside of me.

BIO: Brandon Shane is a poet and horticulturist, born in Yokosuka, Japan. You can see his work in Rattle, trampset, Variant Lit, The Chiron Review, Stone Circle Review, IceFloe Press, The Marrow Poetry, One Art Poetry, among others. Find him on Twitter @ HalfTheLobster and Oddlobster.com