Poems




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            Blues, How Do You Do? *

            The air itself is heavy this morning, and I feel heavy with it.
            I listened to the man called Lead Belly sing his songs,
            heard only sung by others before.
            I read about him, even watched a movie of his life.
            From this brief and tangential acquaintance, 
            he sunk into me and sits there in the basement of my soul
            where I store things that don’t swallow easy.
            I feel the weight of what he endured and survived,
            like what millions endured, but specific and individual.
            which makes all the difference – 
            violence done to him and by him,
            countered by his indomitable spirit.
            He ultimately had a measure of triumph, 
            even played in England, but he paid a steep price for it
            and didn’t live to enjoy it for long.
            I’m thankful I’ve had it easy in comparison, 
            though I created some of my own trouble too.
            Sometimes I think I was born lucky,
            with what I’ve avoided and survived,
            but a voice says “Don’t count on that, son.”
            Do you believe in luck?

            Today the cruelty that men, mostly, 
            afflict other men and women with
            is an uninvited guest in my soul’s house.
            I go about my business as I always do, 
            but the world weighs a little heavy in my hands today.
            Sometimes my mind can’t push aside 
            what it knows of human suffering – 
            too much bad news, so much I wish wasn’t true. 
            I know too much, and I know the importance of knowing, 
            not being blind to what others suffer and endure.
            I didn’t choose to pick up the weight today,
            but some days it’s just my time in the barrel.

            Good morning Blues,
            Blues, how do you do?
            I’m doin all right, 
            Good morning, how are you?  he sang.

            He said he dealt with the blues by talking to it.
            Blues is doin better than me this morning. 
            It’s just how it is today.
            But it’s just the blues, and it’s temporary.
            It’s all right, me and Blues can sit here 
            and keep each other company
            until he gets tired of the ambience and goes away, 
            which in time he will.
            Don’t cheer me up. 
            I don’t need to be robbed of my heart’s weight – 
            it’s good to feel the weight now and then, so I don’t forget.

            It doesn’t worry me.
            As another song goes,
            The sun will shine 
            In my back door someday, **
            The sun rises as well as sets.
            But just for today, it’s cloudy.

            Brett Nelson


           *   "Good Morning Blues”, Lead Belly, The Definitive Lead Belly, 
                Not Now Music, Ltd.
           ** ”I Know You Rider”, traditional.




            Casualties of the Appetites

            Regard this hodge-podge gathering of souls,
            this collection of square pegs that didn’t quite fit
            in the race of ego – perhaps to their credit?
            They’ve been bent to their knees
            and have joined together only due to their failure
            to corral some wild horses of their natures, 
            wanting more, and more, and more!
            They wanted more . . . of something . . .

            Drinking from the well of shared weakness,
            they’ve to their surprise found strength together –
            strength to tame those horses, 
            knowing the horses are still bigger than they are
            and not to be ridden.
            Having a weakness, they’ve learned they’re not weak.
            They’ve been granted vision to imagine the possible 
            and found it within their reach,
            finding even what they didn't know they wanted.

            In turn they quietly shine the light their stories hold
            into the darkness they came from, a beacon to 
            light the way for other casualties of the appetites
            to find the well where they’ve quenched their thirst.

            Brett Nelson




            Catching the Show

            I dreamed I was flying
            High up above my eyes could clearly see
            The Statue of Liberty
            Sailing away to sea             Paul Simon, “American Tune”


            As the day is dying
            under a dark blue-gray sky,
            a reddish-orange glow lights clouds on the horizon 
            from the sun that has already 
            slipped below the curve of the Earth.
            I look at a disappearing contrail
            swiped across the sky like a scar 
            from a jet long gone.

            The New Mexico sky puts on a show 
            like this more nights than not.
            You have to catch the moment 
            as the light fades quickly
            into the coming night. 

            Like that contrail 
            our less perfect union 
            has been scarred and wounded,
            dying into a darkness
            that hides so much in the shadows.

            Liberty’s symbol is drifting out to sea,
            perhaps toward the country it came from.
            It remains to be seen if that nation
            or any other can carry the torch it holds.
            Don’t blink – make sure you catch the show
            before it’s gone.

            BN




            Everything Is Practice

            Someone told me once
            Just think of it as practice,                 
            and suddenly the atmospheric pressure dropped.
             feared if I didn’t do something right 
            it stamped Failure on my forehead
            and everyone would know.

            I knew practice improves performance, 
            but this part of my brain didn’t know
            what that part of my brain knew.
            I didn’t know it for me 
              until I saw in his eyes and heard in his voice 
            that he didn’t see an F on my forehead.
            Like an old rock and roll song says –
            I’m gonna do it wrong till I do it right.*
            Failure is what we do until we succeed.

            So everything in life is just practice?
            Practice for what? 
            For the rest of my life, I suppose. 
            And There is no there there to get to,**
              no place to reach where I’m finished. 
            I’m just a work in progress that’s never complete.
            Life is just one damn thing and then the next,
            but it doesn’t mean it’s not an adventure.
            Like the ash tree out my window –
            it just keeps making new branches.

            BN