David Eugene Brown Jr.
Developed a passion for poetry while attending a small high school in South Carolina. This pursuit was interrupted for 40 short years by a Civil Engineering degree from Clemson University and subsequent career. His work has appeared in The Potomac Review. He currently is active in the Environmental Engineering field- and lives on a farm in Darlington County, S. C.
Talking
“You never talk”, she said, the pouty lips, the anger
Begging for something to chew.
“I’m tired”, the reply
An old standard,
A wall to slow the massing troops,
Safe,
But not high enough to sleep behind.
I close the book,
A neat one on particle physics by Hawking.
I’ll never crack this thing on black holes
Without talking.
The Life That Just Rushed Past
The life that just rushed past
In black and white
And over coat
Was never deemed
A conscious smear
That could portray the dew.
And God is love
Beyond the fence
The fields are burning too.
The Man Who Read Too Much Bad Poetry
Once there was a man from the Midwest,
(Not Nantucket)
Who loved poetry, peaches, and summer days without rain.
He was thought mostly normal, sweatered,
And never yelled at small children or poor poets,
But he was full of small pockets
Of rage
Of love
Of war and peace, books forgotten,
All carefully contained within a worried smile,
Manuscripts stacked on his dusty desk
Like tossed firewood, huge stacks,
Enough to block out the morning sun
Or burn many unpunished saints.
The Newspaper Truth
The white, the un-yellowed obituaries
Songs of the fresh dead
Carefully carved by writers without writing desks
Should be saved, treasured as truth
Without spelling or copy check.
The remaining wind song
Can burn or wrap without loss,
Word and picture laid by sales folk without regret
For suicides or creeping madness.
The lasting news is formed by the dead,
And who among us would speak untruth of the fresh dead?
The Possibility of a Single Consciousness
Would there be any views but yours,
Possible lights in this painting of flowers,
Or is this dream the lonely dot of you
Surrounded by birds of the clear sky,
Sketches of flight,
My smile in a pastel frame,
A sailor’s canvas shroud with nothing beyond ?
The Strangled Banner
Jose can you see the dawn at all
Or the hell at twilight,
Rich broads and bright stars,
Or the mighty ramparts
Where the children fall?
The industrial rockets with eerie green glare
Giving proof without sight
Of a God without care.
Does that banner yet wave
O’er the land where the homeless and buffalo roam
The forgotten home
Of the slave
And the brave?
To Sarah, with a Violin I Love
The earth, the wind, the fire, and you
I cannot constrain to love or contain
A free foolish sense of you and me
Without age or ice or lingering view.
Youth well spent into seasons’ decline,
And Darwin’s dice,
Most fortunate roll,
Against fame and time bearing terrible toll,
Returning notes on golden wings.
Listen Mama
I sing
I sing.
