Just Short of Hearing

by Donald Brandis

trees most stubborn persist
their silence is linked hands
among these campsites

no notice? watch
it run beneath screaming children’s
tiny gap between urge and act

boat unzipping the lake
birdcall sound of plates scraped
of seeds spit against a tin roof

wheeze lift sighing straining
bowel tones of single passing cars
slow around a road all bends and trees

narrow hum of insects too small
too fast to be identified
filed in a closet of known sounds

that intriguing in-gathered almost-sound
of trees like a single long-held note
on in-breath, on out-breath

clever bastards
if I’d had a hundred years
with nothing else to do

an unsound measured by what
it has outlasted, what
it’s shed though strangely

other shorter higher sounds
- this one would be deepest bass -
hang on it like notes on a spindle

9.

by Donald Brandis

at half-light early spring birds are in full song
voicing a delicious freedom fresh as seasonal produce
in market stalls from distant fields
a vocal gesture to imagination, freedom’s forecourt
several voices high up left and right
small strident sounds perhaps to each other:
found some juicy bugs over here!
perhaps just venting:
those crow squawkers kept me up all night!
the day incoming brighter now but still unformed
eludes the mind scurrying to box it up
like lines of old days shelved in a garage
their cartons slowly fading and wrinkling
even these are evasions; no time accepts our keeping
each and all walk away from us shedding our dream songs
our morning’s take means nothing to the day
shouldering in big as Texas on steroids
the birds have it right
here is the day unmade!
the boxing mind relents to watch and listen
as a vanishingly singular day rising in mist and light
slides over and around our notice
hearty powerful and enigmatic
as a breeze from yesterday morning’s lake came
scented with cedar and pine

7.

by Donald Brandis   

a coil of ribbon muddy green uncoiling
haphazard as a neglected lawn
will in a few moments be un-looped lying limp
against themselves, each loop a different size
and shape from having been nearly identical
if the coils had been cut apart like a cored apple
twice by a long knife making both cuts at once
opposite each other, it would take careful measurement
to reconstruct the coils
or it would take unnatural perception

so is the day unwinding on the homeward commute
she lets it go to the ruin it will be
tomorrow unmanaged, a mess she will finesse
but for this evening the openings between loops
widen until the loops vanish
with a delicious, unexpected release
the ribbons are bits of company history
trends large and small, smaller, very small
wrapped in each other like a ball of rubber bands

she turns her cell off, a small rebellion
and goes into the spaces where loops have been
where there is no telling
at home she pours a glass of wine
and looks at a familiar framed photo
a reflecting pool at Versailles
a lazy afternoon of bicyclists
and shells with rowers moving like long-legged insects
well away down the surface of the pool
their number indistinct

in late afternoon the light has begun its decline
the scene is mostly sky indifferent to light
and to darkness the trees around the pond
have begun to pull on like a winter coat
the big mirroring pond is also indifferent
to all but sky she is entering
first as a thought-bird whose vision is just larger
than galaxies, just larger than dust particles
then as the sky itself, everywhere clarity and delight

Toad Hall

by Donald Brandis

Among the most telling clues to who we are
is what we live in, Toad says in his best Churchillian rumble
his jowls shaking like my sister Kate’s shimmy
we’re deep in the willows where the moss-bound stones
of Toad Hall can almost be seen or imagined
he puts down his cigar and reaches for his glass
the river is a constant companion
although we’ve just arrived with the trailer
and are still fussing with its hookup
she’s already telling an irresistible story
either we’ve missed the beginning or it has none
inside the walls are cream-colored with light
shifting at the edges of notice
standing only where and when we see them
the trailer lurches when we move
seemingly as light as a thought and tiny
we’d have to go outside to change our minds
but when we do we’re still inside
The moment, the moment, Toad bellows
coughing and thrashing in his deep armchair
but we’ve stopped hearing him
for the river’s endless but wholly episodic story
of Arabian nights, of Homeric millennia-shifting
a string of sparkling beads found on a beach

Too Big To Fake

by Donald Brandis

a story from an age of disbelief
of a lobster dancing with a porcupine, a badger with a crane
unlikely to the very border of impossible
we are suddenly much older
a teenage zombie morphed to a ragged camel
aged field-gray with a Hubble eye
watching Death approaching from the far side of the universe
as it has through all of the universe's life
not as a foreign agent but as a hidden intimate
like God whose necessary unknowns
like unstoried dark matter and dark energy
are most of what spin the visible universe

even in an age of disbelief
stories arise from the same necessity as God
not in detail but in being
strings of creative compromises of order with novelty
with no need to convince but only to entertain
settle back; we are not here to rule
we are only audience even to our own stories
a lobster dancing with a porcupine, a badger with a crane

Paul Repossessed

by Donald Brandis

the moon a slice of melon
a weak lantern over an unsettled sea
their boat wallowed like the pig it was
a sailor standing beside Paul fresh from a visit to Corinth
said then spat overboard
neither guide nor décor but random thought
senseless as the waves of this beachless life
he muttered to himself without passion
Paul heard, considered answering
out of the great shaking reordering he once endured
like a hanging, like a mugging on a dark street
a sunstoke fit lasting three long days and nights
raving and thrashing, spitting up bile
then woke up someone else he was no longer around to recognize
would not have if he was
citizen now of a far country few ever merely visit

'the whole human world is overdue for a good shaking
and it's not far off,' he answered in the same flat undertone
the sailor had used but seemed now not to hear
for just then a huge fish leaped straight up out of the water
shaking off spray and all but dancing on the sea surface
twisting side to side as if to throw off a lined hook
flashing silver blue-green in moonlight suddenly bright as bonfire
for a long moment it hung near the moon like a dark wish almost granted
then diving back into black water it vanished without sound or splash
'Satan?' the sailor asked in the same monotone
'Us,' Paul answered: the sailor nodded