Poetry

Konrad Lembcke photo

By

Michael H. Brownstein

I Am Terrorist

I am terrorist

for the poetry in peace

when my country

calls out for anger.

I am terrorist

terrified

by a people

who follow wrong

when they know right.

I do not say—

My country,

love it or leave it—

but rather—My country,

love it

and make it better.

Let us harvest the will

of the good in people,

find the power in passions

strong and unfaltering,

the meditation for change,

the conscience of right.

I am terrorist—

join me. Let us harvest the will

of the good in people,

the meditation for change,

the conscience of right.

I am terrorist—

join me.

A Day Of Snow And Heat And Other Cold Objects After My Mother’s Third Husband Passed Away

This is a sick kind of rain

and I have no patience for it.

Nor do I like its appetite.

The hand that reaches across the land

weak and full of warts

can no longer surrender.

It is it not enough to kiss it

and let go.

December, winter solstice, a few pages ago

thunder with snow,

then lightning

And now the ground is frozen

and your heart keeps in the heat.

Cold has only one purpose when there is snow,

but the dead man has no purpose.

Pneumonia weather and the rain does not stop

the ground gray clouds and dirt

drinking water full of waste.

And though the snow looked like it was doing well,

it wasn’t doing well at all.

We have cures for some of this

but warts and love,

waste and love?

It rains and the landscape melts into brooks

Some things are beautiful without

attachments.

Michael H. Brownstein

Michael H. Brownstein has nine poetry chapbooks including A Period of Trees (Snark Press, 2004), Firestorm: A Rendering of Torah (Camel Saloon Press, 2012), and The Possibility of Sky and Hell (White Knuckle Press, 2013). He is the editor of First Poems from Viet Nam (2011).