Gospels of War


Chapter One
Undisciplined, illiterate boys
were scooped and poured
into the meshing grind
and out the end of the machine
cast iron soldiers
fell and filled the bins,
and by the case were
wrapped and shipped
off to the welcome furnace.
And then and there
we thought we saved ourselves
from some gnashing,
snakehead evil
or from the unknown fate of those
who play the unknown pacifistic card of faith
then risk hand of an unknown God;
or had avoided our own man-to-man,
sweat-to-sweat and God-to-God
fight-to-the-death by
bayonet, bullet, hand.

Chapter Two
As I ran from the bombed hospital,
another something happened and
all they ever found of me
was my left foot
inside my boot
and then and there my fellow patriots
lost themselves.
Loading their blind weapons with
consumptive, blazing vengeance,
the infection spread
to slaughter the
heart and souls of entire nations,
unaware
the wrong ones were being killed
and killing.

Chapter Three
After the bombing,
through the fallen dustscape,
stubborn smoke of burning dirt,
he found face of a crying baby,
still held in her headless mother's arms
and then and there
he lost his world.
With time,
he began to understand
this grotesque art of human will
serves catalyst to
redemptive revelation as
he found himself to be that child
gripped in his headless Savior's clutch.

Based on first hand testimonies of eyewitnesses to
World War II and the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Sand Sculptures


In the forefront of the onslaught
when the Janjaweed attacked,
there she was,
clothed in black,
astride her camel,
screaming at God,
begging
for more bullets.
Later, I moved so close
to watch a moving mouth deny
what the world already knows;
I tried to look inside it,
had to see if flapping Satan’s tongue
was made of spongy rubber.
His desert agents live on rape,
creatively compete to pile
dismembered herds of living humans,
and carve artistic autographs
of blood
on black-stretched canvasses.
Fortunately, genocide is not so ugly
when it involves strangers,
when we watch it long enough,
and when it’s left to be discussed
by journalists and politicians.
If just two hundred thousand more could die,
maybe we could see another
tearful TV special,
get to mourn with Monday friends
at our favorite Starbucks,
and maybe even find excuse
to pray somewhere for peace.
But for now,
another shares her thoughtful recollections,
remembering the home she left:
"...and they gouged out my neighbor’s eyes
and squashed them in the sand,
then placed them in his shrieking hands
to keep as souvenirs."

Copyright (c) 2007 Gary Brown

Brothers


Did Jesus smile to himself
as he washed the feet of Judas?
Did Judas?
Cozying up next to Jesus during dinner,
did he hope to win His glance, some extra credit
or perhaps even make Him laugh?
As Jesus began to understand
the envy, the anger, the future of his friend,
did He invest a little more in Judas stock?
Back at the table, two arms reach
with roughened fingers gripping bread
and bound for the same dipping bowl, knuckles bump;
Jesus counts the jury's votes
but not to be upstaged, Judas steals the exit scene.
In a few hours each was found
with advertisements hung upon them:
One said, "Jesus, King of Jews",
the other read, "Will work for glory".

Copyright (c) 2007 Gary Brown

When He Lost His Rant And Had To Sit Quietly In His Chair


There is no revenge for humans.
There is but one retribution and is not ours to savor;
it's saved for some future, dank,
back alley, closing universe
where God will weep as He
disassembles His most gorgeous archangel of light;
that one who gripped the Holy saber by the blade,
sliced his palms along it and
grinned as his blood trailed across this virgin planet,
stained our dust before we breathed.
Since then, our festering thirst of selfyness and
each man's not-so-sacred limp and drawl
amuses this fallen ventriloquist
who lives to blow words in our mouths,
jerk our limbs about,
toss us in the trunk;
a thief without a place to fence his goods.
Ignoring script of destiny, he
stuffs his orphanages with clucking souls,
nervous waifs and cocky shrouds who
hide their question marks inside vest pockets;
he pushes nations down time's shuffleboard,
scores endlessly imagined points at a nonexistent game
in which he will never know a victory.
So, we can forget our anger
since we have not been harmed except
to each one's self by each one's hand;
for only honest victims garner quarter in their
sacred culprit's wide display upon the coliseum's floor
where tigers of the evidence dine on justice;
a holy place where we are not invited.

Copyright (c) 2009 Gary Brown

A Certain Metal Manna


The atom bomb,
Oppenheimer's metal infant of regret,
through a drainpipe in the sky
whistled out a gleeful tune as prelude to
their traveling opera, "Saint Vaporo";
brought clever tidings of a most strange love:
"Unto you is born this day August 6 at 8:15 a.m.,
of one Enola Gay, great with child,
the mythic Little Boy.";
and for fifty-seven seconds
ten armed surgeons of the air held their breath,
watched delivery of that spanked, wailing babe,
the triumphant entry of this newborn king.
Out of town, in the mountains,
celebrating my fourth birthday,
we waited a few weeks
until my mother brought me home
to the greydust, flattened, charred-street desert,
the melted bones of Hiroshima.
I thought it such an awfully grand production,
that day when some strangers came to town
and burned my new tricycle.

Copyright (c) 2009 Gary Brown

The Devil's Haystack


From his neighborhood's porches,
sidewalks, street curbed corners,
mommies and daddies swallow paper bags of venom,
while children watch, learning life.
The language of anger,
words of war with one's self,
hopeless murmurings, cursed profanities
flow as prayers at breakfast.
Mistreated, malnourished family pets
serve as surrogate angels to
these giggling, wide-eyed,
attentive ambassadors from our future.
Deafening car speakers blare propaganda of despair,
disillusionment, pathogen of idiocy
to babes' and siblings' tender ears
and once-pure brains,
stunting hope.
Among what passes for existence,
this Diogenes searches with his swinging lantern,
studying faces, scanning hearts,
perhaps to spy an honest dream.

Copyright (c) 2006 Gary Brown

Choosing War


When God enabled war, some angels did prefer it,
as do we when we hum its anthem;
demand Lucifer and Michael
face off, slug it out across the ballroom floor.
Without an inside tip, we do not care yet place our bets,
stake everything for chance to fight a fight.
We know the Devil cannot sing or dance;
we watch him take his slop-foot stance.
As this other wingless wonder takes the stage
we know that angels do not fly, have gender, age.
When clanging bell ignites,
we pit them 'gainst each other
as we do our versions of every good and evil,
our personal rights and other's wrongs versus Truth,
making war religious entertainment.

Copyright (c) 2007 Gary Brown

Tommy


With these, while in his infant crib
he reached up to feel the air, play with the breath of God.
With these, he
pushed toy trucks through backyard grass,
shoveled Cheerios in his mouth,
swung his bat and caressed his dog while sleeping.
With these, he fumbled with his microscope
and slides in science class,
played ball on high school courts and fields,
punched his best friend's shoulder and
held hands with a teenaged angel.
With these, he typed and clicked the college nights away
while glued with coffee to books and notes,
drove his car to work and class and work and class
and work and class and still found the odd weekend to
repair and paint the home of some whose
wrinkling, failing bodies robbed them of this chore.
With these, folded, he sometimes simply sat,
stilled them to allow some thinking,
rested them for their own good,
clasped them in contented resignation to
the One who planned his path.
With these, he also trained himself
to address an unknown enemy
whose misguided heart is bent,
starved for sacrificial deaths
and thus ironically, these days,
he carries weapon to stop war's blinding bleed.
With these, today he gripped the wheel of his Humvee
as he rushed comrads and first aid
to another market bombing,
then stepped out directly on an IED.
As dirt and metal fragments settled,
choruses of screams and shouts erupted,
I charged the smoke and flame to pull him out of there;
with rescue spelled in ticking seconds,
whitened by the falling dust, I froze,
and as a ghostly statue,
stared across a charred and steaming earth where
in the sand, the only thing God left us with
were the still, warm and open palms
of Tommy's hands.

Copyright (c) 2008 Gary Brown

Riding The Clock


When God hired Nebuchadnezzar's buddy, Nebuzaradan,
to clean His house, this brutal fellow had no clue who
sent him there or signed his checks.
A Love that toys with human minds who cannot grasp it,
flings out discipline to rescue children from their own profanity;
severs the masochistic limbs they use to flog and soothe themselves.
Through the brawn of circumstance and such thugs' ugly fists,
God bends their hearts behind their backs until they scream for more.
Most lovingly, He peels their eyes and steals their tears
and when the time is only right,
when the moment has been stretched across their gasps for air
and as they fall and in death, stare,
He closes up His hand around them,
smothers out their blindness, breathes between His fingers,
oils their skins.
Yet, today as then,
few of them will later celebrate that first dawn of the slaughter man,
that invasive, evil agent who only knew to
strap and kill the names writ on his list;
they cannot see him as the hero God employed him as.
Somewhat healed,
they are quickly satisfied to claim their earned redemptions,
line up for their bonus points, and then retrace their bloody steps
back to their killing trees.

Regarding Jeremiah 52:1-30

Copyright (c) 2008 Gary Brown

Technical Foul


Weak of mind, hard of heart, strong of will,
the humans entertained themselves
with selfish games of war.

Jousting with mortality, the frail species,
preoccupied with fear and all its offspring,
practice delicious exercises in extermination.

By rude referee's demand, the fools,
headlong resolved to end their lot,
sit in anger, cursing, from the penalty box.

Copyright (c) 2004 Gary Brown

To Toss a Dog a Bone


She tells of a world where dogs
run in the streets with body parts in their mouths;
its relevance lost on us,
those foreign folks with all their issues;
there are so many of these people
and, of course, we know none of them.
I, do not know them or
their beautiful mystic flowing tongues,
whose musical words dance in my ears
to the beat of love and guns.
I, do not know them with their
tears-turned-fears-to-anger lives,
strapped on body packs, trigger switches,
who pray that God will pay attention
if they kill enough of His enemies,
enough of us, of everyone who scares them.
I, do not know those people who
hover-hold their laughing children
hoping to protect them from the
hoards of human locusts lining up outside to kill them,
somewhere, out there, in the TV,
as if they think they know us.
I, do not even know the friendly woman's radio voice
oozing poetry,
filling up my living room with a soldier's stunning words:
"When I died,
they washed me out of the turret, with a hose";
what am I supposed to do with that?
I, do not know if when
philosophers say of warring people,
"Without imaginations,
they have only the enthusiasts left.",
whom they judge; place in their erudite line of fire.
I, do not know what caused a woman,
someone's loving daughter, wife and mother,
victimized by what she saw,
to enter in her diary,
"Crush the heads of those vicious dogs.",
but I realize she apparently
speaks well for both sides now.

Copyright (c) 2008 Gary Brown

Scarlet Ballet


He didn’t know why today was different.
Seeking perhaps to distance himself
from this odd, slow-motion scene
of piling, armed carnage,
he decided the hundreds of sprouting wet holes
in so many bodies
were simply a form of deflation
which politely collapsed them
on others’ sprawled limbs
as dead leaves float eerily to earth,
discreetly clothing their roots.
He didn’t know why it was different, today.
His trained body absorbed the blows
of jackhammer recoils as
a flashing, fire-river, steel-jacket eruptions
endlessly poured from his weapon
and for a suspended, sacred moment...
he saw it;
without stopping,
his secret eyelids opened and
he saw it:
unfortunate dancers sacrificially indulged
in smoky ballet.
All, born for this moment;
accompanied by spewing rounds
of splattered pings from scalding casings,
their tap-dance symphony of chimes,
with barrel as conductor's wand
he directed bodies to pirouette,
spin twisted contortions, spill their organs
and teeth
on the stage,
staining each other, expiring as
wilting mannequins;
flopping, red-slimed, open-eyed fish.
Then, without applause,
he stood alone
in that choking, cloudy, gunsmoke heaven,
unsure who had stolen paradise;
he discovered that some ghosts cannot be buried,
they must be disassembled.
He did not know why, today,
war had become so different.

Copyright (c) 2007 Gary Brown

A Nicaraguan Story


She ran outside,
stood in the street and screamed at the war,
hoping it would kill her;
it having eaten her eldest son,
and after thirteen days of red,
her husband.
Over twenty years later, every day
she walks a stony road,
unlocks the door to the village's humble
gallery of photos;
one hundred fifty family folk with soldier hearts,
sepia faces,
hung there to watch,
keep guard over their memories.
In the dusty cemetery families buried
all the guns;
AR 15s filled the graves,
so as to find their suited death
with death.
Yet, those graven markers point us up,
indicate to Whom they hope the victims fled;
these wobbly, countless Jesus fingers
poke through el barro de carne y hueso,
(the mud of meat and bone)
aiming at, directing us to safety.

Regarding Maria Gonzalez and the
Mothers of Heroes and Martyrs Museum in Esteli, Nicaragua

Copyright (c) 2007 Gary Brown

The Lost Supper (in Darfur)


I have heard there are some Sudanese
who can still remember...
food.
Recollections of its wafting smell,
lingering flavors, tender texture;
its crumbling weight within the palm
now long faded by
the forever stretch of hunger's twist;
yet, I have heard there are some who
can still remember.

Copyright (c) 2007 Gary Brown

Red Gravel


On April 24, 1944: Earl opened his eyes.
At twenty-two thousand feet above Germany,
the whistling shrieks of a negative, thirtysome degrees
blasted through the shattered belly turret
where he hung
beneath the thunderous, shaking B-17.
Stunned by the explosive splatter
of fragmented metal, glass and blood,
his icing, numbing, wadded-up body spewed red;
suspended there,
these trailing streams of warm, life syrup turned midair
to tiny, falling, bouncing, frozen marbles;
rolling everywhere,
collecting 'round his boots and leaking body.
His Boy Scout training twisted down a tourniquet,
saved an arm, his life, where he lay;
no longer able to grip and squeeze
his 50 caliber crucifix,
unable to launch a final, deafening
lead-streamed curse
at yet another screaming, airborne satan.
Before exhausting consciousness,
it occurred to him
to try to scatter from the broken, glassy floor,
this growing accumulation of
rolling red gravels,
push them outside before losing altitude
and falling into the melting warmth of earthly airs;
sweep out now
or mop up later.
Defying belief,
this invisibly suspended,
half destroyed, smoking, flying fortress
bled across the heavens,
angrily wailing out to God for sanctuary.
Hardened warriors swarmed the tarmac,
and lost for words at the landed, shredded,
impossibly flown, ghostly airship,
they gently lifted out the dead and wounded
from within its riddled carcass;
the heroic last remains of their tail gunner, friend,
and the burned, yet somehow breathing pilots.
Of those within its crippled, massive length
not one escaped the butchery or carnage;
and with each wound each airman bought
the honor, the passion, the privileges
of freedom.


Dedicated to all WWII airmen as exemplified by the experience of Earl Burke of the 1st Division, 41st Combat Wing, 384th Bombardment Group, 547th Squadron, Station 106 at Grafton Underwood, England on April 24, 1944.

Copyright (c) 2007 Gary Brown

Sweet Vengeance


Revenge...
tasty morsel;
while not looking,
plucked from mouth of God;
stolen sweets.
Tempting,
too much by far to leave untouched,
unsampled;
while looking left, hand goes right,
picking God’s pocket,
sabotaging righteous judgment.

Copyright (c) 2004 Gary Brown

The Lone Savior


What carnage is sufficient to cause pause,
jiggle conscience, birth an ideological hiccup,
provoke a holy poke in the eye?
Frozen, unblinking, afraid to breathe,
our noses sample air for scent of blood in water.
Timid buzzards, we circle the crime scene,
fearful, yet drawn,
unable to process the grizzly sight;
so troubled by sacrificial love.

Copyright (c) 2004 Gary Brown

Prelude to the Eve of Destruction


Dowsing it in gasoline,
with the casual toss of intentional match
he spontaneously chose to sacrifice Mercy,
without a plan.
Not thoughtless, not thoughtful,
desiring rescue without redemption,
he cluelessly burned his only bridge,
that saving device constructed of suffering,
fashioned to effect his last escape;
he set it ablaze and contemplated
the mystery of its warmth.

Copyright (c) 2007 Gary Brown

Crutch


Destined to be someone's three-limbed poster child
for peace, for war, for nothing and much more,
they made me their one man parade,
a lifetime limping billboard for
the strangers who will never know my name;
who've now moved on,
forgotten the cause which prompted them
so many years ago
to plant a mine along my path to school.
Without a foot, without a leg,
without a way to class again,
I began another education
where pain and sorrow taught me long.
Sweaty years of stumbling as the object of sad eyes,
the target of a taunt, the last in line
have roughly led me to a place
where God's embrace of fierce gentility
has gripped me so I can't let go;
for I am not the first child He
has rescued from the public cross
of someone seeking private justice.

Copyright (c) 2007 Gary Brown

The Blessing of Stephen

He is recognized and received with shouts,
the throng's excitement,
and beautiful stones which are presented.
Respectfully, Stephen does not bow
to escape his gracious greeting.

Regarding Acts 7:54 - 8:1

Copyright (c) 2006 Gary Brown

Walking Subtitles


When orders came to liquidate the prisoners,
an altogether new awareness
settled on the guarded
and the guards.
What previously passed as mere brutality,
gave way to conversion:
humans into mannequins
whose slippery flesh paved the earth,
becoming landscape,
void of explanation.
There is a night which exists in daylight,
a prison not escaped
with open fields or busy plazas,
and voices never quelled by silence;
memory works that way.
The escaping few, did not;
and courageous soldiers who
risked life to spare souls in their charge,
still live in fear
of whom they were before the edict.
All who lived bespeak their torture quietly
by living, enduring, interpreting for us
what should not be forgotten.

Copyright (c) 2006 Gary Brown

Behold... The Revolution


Revolutions bore me.

Doomed to chase the morning’s sun,
snare it with some new idea
then label it something else
just to have it rise again tomorrow,
none the worse for wear.

Most revolutions, are not.

Dressed up in intellectual hootery,
their squawking owners sell their spit,
rent their slogans, invent images fit to kill,
and hype parade,
foolishly unafraid of succeeding.

There are no more revolutionaries.

Still, someone is selling a lot of hats
and those impressive revolutionary t-shirts;
after all, looking alike creates unity,
helps to fight the status quo before becoming it;
a catchy song never hurts.

Copyright (c) 2006 Gary Brown

Freedom’s Creed


Of war, of sacrifice, of burdens freedom brings
we cannot, dare not hope to think not,
still, upon such gifts bestowed
by those we have not known,
at costs we cannot dream;
whose breath and purpose all but spent,
in but a moment, for us all.

Shy not away from scene of sacrificial uniform
worn by soul whose now cold body,
still... it may adorn.
There is no name, even one,
whose blood and tear is given as our own,
whom we can
afford to honor not.

There is no task nor job we can endure
and in so doing,
cede distraction from what we
must consciously acknowledge
as righteous price, now paid,
and constantly,
so our lives can be lived.

Your liberty is not ensured nor some historic fact;
it is won in daily sums
whom someone, daily, pays.
It's earned with sacrifices made
we can never know,
which even now are spilling forth,
out of sight and mind.

As minutes tick themselves to death,
so too, are they suffered by
the hearts and minds of those who lay
somewhere tonight,
with knuckles white,
who short of breath and time, do wage
your battles there, for you.

Fool not ourselves, we've anything
which we can boast, take for granted
'midst the daily drone and bore of life.
The price is never paid enough;
such gaping wound will not be fed
with yesterday's of death;
today it must be satiated... and again, tomorrow.

No, liberty is not a silent, passive state
but comes at such a costly, savage toll
required by beast, of us, each hour;
thus we've no option but to slay as sacrifice, ourselves.
So, as we grasp our forks at freedom's dinner table,
know by God's grace, it is that we
partake in one more meal.

And lay aside this notion that a person may or not
engage themselves or have concern;
there is a cost and justly due for life of liberty.
And soberly acknowledge who pays our tab, this minute;
now laying down their life and limb to face the evil toil
of never ending war of wars,
'til earth is God-subdued.

Know this: There is no peace on earth
and it cannot, in truth,
be known except inside the hearts of man
and that, trafficked, one by one
where neither gun nor force nor battles waged
controls, impedes
the sacred voice of God.

Copyright (c) 2004 Gary Brown

Wordworks


Last night,
he spoke a word to someone who
unknown to him, spoke with someone else
who changed their mind about a thing
and in so doing
saved, or rather did not take
four thousand twenty seven lives.
This large though puddle-drop event
is evidence of a sandal-footed print
of one certain craftsman's son
who, too,
knew there are some certain words
with God's breath on them
which will save this world.

Copyright (c) 2006 Gary Brown

The Garden Rebuilt


Desiring to be almost God,
we invented shortcuts to
a rapid style of righteousness,
pathways to pushbutton retribution.
Dispensing justice by remote control,
automating global love,
financing long-distance peace,
and at arm's length, tinkering with nirvana;
each presumes someone will
fix the world
by simply
pushing buttons.

Copyright (c) 2004 Gary Brown

A Monochromatic Mosaic


Opening the paper bag,
his memory and careful fingers slowly lifted, one by one,
the crumpled, folded, aging pieces of her clothing;
begrudgingly, he hoped that this surgical dissection
would not serve as catalyst,
spark a spontaneous unraveling of emotion.
Uncertain as to why this moment stalked him, yet
persuaded by an awkward sort of willingness
to analyze this evidence
he had retrieved it, silently, from its covert refuge,
a buried sanctuary in his attic orphanage.
Then he ceremoniously sat and studied on this bulky,
semi-sacred, wrinkly-paper-packaged brownness
centered on his table.
Finally, the fading light revealed his silhouette;
numbed and halting fingers shifting, rearranging,
saddened rumpled fabrics, puzzled bits,
slowly matching monochromatic rusts of blood
with their dotting, splotching, sprinkled splatter;
yet those unaged, unwelcomed, rude,
invasive, angry ammunition holes,
those red-orange-brown coffee-colored,
tattered stains of leaking evil, still remained.
If only he could put it back together;
match each bloodied signature, bind the empty holes,
with sutures of his love stitch every
bullet tattooed scar engraved into her heart and spirit,
then perhaps he might repair the pain,
reassemble stolen life,
recover long lost years of tears
and recall from some purgatory,
their youthful whispers
of hope and glory.

Copyright (c) 2007 Gary Brown

Judicial Access


Refined, hideous, buried to elbows in
the chafing dish of vengeance,
we sit behaved around God's parlor
hoping not to break His things.
When our personal courts convene
we announce our thirst for righteousness,
insatiably dine on judging others,
and practice pocket-picking hoarding
of sweet revenge and justice delayed;
forbidden fruits saved for private gorging.
Manners minded as if we were tourists
guided through The Garden,
we hope to swipe some souvenirs
we can use to rule the world.
We dance between the lines of scriptures
without touching on the Ark,
that Holybox of Godified Truth,
then exhibit the gall to clear our throats,
proudly declare whose right and wrong,
pretend to steal attention for the holiest of crusades.

Copyright (c) 2006 Gary Brown

War Watchers


Wretched battles wreak horrid,
poetic romance on the screen;
commentators entertain
tireless, popcorn chomping mouths;
watch, watch, watch.
Seduced by its guttural magic,
background music,
primal displays of professional hatred
and legalized killing in the streets
mesmerize eyes and ears
who discuss it with the heart;
casting stones during commercials.

Copyright (c) 2004 Gary Brown

Bad Boy Glamour


Back in the day when brainblood ran black,
drained past thoughtfully lodged bullet frags,
escaped the scalp, soaked deep into earth's carpet
while some fella simply walked away,
believing his justice just, and unafraid to say so,
even then... angels named names.
There were no good old days of bad,
no such thing as honor among anyone,
for Eve had the monopoly on greed
and Adam, her crooked mouthpiece;
all the rest are bumbling children,
would-be front men for these
gangsters of corruption.
The glamour-gloss of evil is but the shiny slick,
hardened scum of flavored sin;
is not real,
yet, from distances reflects God's sun
as Coronado's City of Gold;
beckons the tourists.

Copyright (c) 2006 Gary Brown

And Good Dies Young


The defective notion of perhaps
not having done enough right things,
cankerously ate at Nelson's conscience.
Meanwhile, from within some lofty office,
Satan watched and snickered at such
misappropriated sense of guilt
which had infested this man's thoughts,
soiled his vestments, wrinkled his spirit.
And for this reason, the Evil One
loves some who place their faith in God;
he relishes their unguarded vulnerability,
that misguided mission some embrace
to right a crooked world,
presume their personal medicine
and bandaged truth heals earthly sores.
Satan adores such innocent and arrogant
thirst for fairness and the way they make their justice.
For those who tend to miss the cue
that God Himself, alone retains
the judgment and the verdict,
will tend to feed their well meant zeal,
dole out fetid gestures
and dispense the rule of law in gray, myopic passion to
remedy each and every wrong, which may or not exist.
So, armed with what is thought to be
some righteous truth in hand,
Satan dangles that before them,
prone as he is to taunt and tease
these animated judgeless juries,
lost ambassadors of good.
And thus he puts them out of mind
as slowly they become no threat,
quite consumed by all their valiant causes;
anesthetized, made useless by distraction.

Copyright (c) 2007 Gary Brown

God’s Gunslinger


Subconsciously, he thinks himself God's Deputy,
policer of the people,
polisher of scales of justice, unblindfolded judge.
Fortunately, for Warren,
interpreting right from wrong comes easily as he
adjudicates souls,
shares his talent for righteous judgment
upon everyone he sees;
thinks his thick-skinned sensibility a blessing,
ignoring comment and cautious words of
lesser skilled than he.
The streets of Dodge are safer now
that he assumed the badge;
a self-appointment though it is,
satisfies the need
for someone such as he to run the town.
The jails are full in Warren's life,
bad people sit and serve their time,
his good folk work and mind their ways,
and he closes every day,
watching from his porch.

Copyright (c) 2006 Gary Brown

Terror in Lovely Repose

On a note within the bottle,
God had inscribed:
Fear dispels fear
Fear destroys fear
Fear contradicts fear
Fear remedies fear
Fear relieves fear
Perfect fear is perfect peace
Fear births love
Seek fear
Pursue fear
Embrace fear
Sell out for fear

Copyright (c) 2004 Gary Brown

Passage


Too easily,
slipped he
into that coat once father wore,
Then stood,
transfixed
before reflection which that mirror bore.
And in this moment,
grew son,
somehow different than before,
As he in silence,
saw himself...
in father’s coat of war.


Copyright (c) 2004 Gary Brown