Southern Meal

You only ever lived in a place where they eat steak for dinner.
Where the cows cover the distance dumbly, deadly
From the stockyards to your white lined dinner plate.
A ruthless ceremony of slaughter drowned out by the din,
Bleeding through fake wood paneled walls, of the TV
And something about this, that or the other smothers the screaming
Of black patched livestock splayed out
In a bloody Rorschach, rare.

- Landon K. Brown

Copyright ©2010

(featured in the poetry forum 06.28.10)

A boy, a girl and a beach.

They tip toe out from their caravan, robed in ordinary.

Bestilled however by the sights ahead. A curious wax dripping from virgin skin.

They are motes of unease. Running from this boredom.

Their intrigue has brought them this far. Stirring the beach under a warm sun.

Stitches of clothes shaken to their heels. They plunge into foamy crests and icy waters. Sun-
browned bodies, unbeaten yet by the abuse of life.

They are clinging newborn souls against these seaside pastures – those, excreting salt and
gurgling tentacles, heaving oily fish onto shore.

From their dance, sweet sweet chastity falls, like coins from a pocket.

Now, all they want is each other. To see skin, and taste it. To penetrate body.

The fervent pulse of the sun is tapping against thirsty tongues, coursing through their ripe veins.

The colossus of such an event will turn a boy into a lion, and a girl into his first love.

Let this beach be their burial ground. Among the sand, the marsh, and the sky. Let nothing else
in life happen.

Let them sink here forever, as sprawled out bohemians, into latitude sonatas of moans, of
laughter, and of verging breathlessness.

Let them continue unknowing of the monstrosity that awaits, like circling gulls in turbid sky,
hunting a feast among love sick leftovers.

Let them not see the world outside and its desperation. Or feel the predators and its horrors.
Let them...

...Alas, at some hour, a boy and a girl will be gone; bodies scooped up and run away. And a
beach will remain.

And traces of where they slept will be poured over by a rising tide,

A boy and a girl will have vanished. Like white birds in a white sky.

Landon K. Brown

(featured in the poetry forum 04.29.10)

Dear Woman on the Street

Dear woman on the street. Sadistic. Sordid. Splendid.

Roaming into China Town. And, the Boulevard of red carpet cock and rock.

Ushered out to concrete. The hard sun. Mighty blisters on hand and soles of feet.

Loving tourists and opening cracked hands to faces, indifferent. Pathetic.

Collecting calico sand from shorelines of sodden beaches; Manhattan, Venice, Santa Monica, marbles, of crystal and miniscule, into dirty thick glass jars. Sculpting castles of sand sharp against a sun drenched horizon.

Traveling pearl globe in your heart. Dreams in the crevice of an alley. On urine. On cat shadows, and passing cruisers. The taste of fig in your dry mouth. On your sore tongue.

Dear woman on the street. Will you wander forever, you princess? You prophet. You queen.

Hearing angel sounds come out of Troubadour, like soul, like miracle, like change.

Hiding your life in bags, in carts, on anguished wheels. Burying like treasure, like dog bone, your mother’s antique pearl necklace.

Swallowing pints of oblivious beverage and burrowing under wooden peers, singing songs till sun falls and rises once more.

Dear woman on the street. Don’t shrink into dark. Remain luminous amid tides of falling lives and broken hearts. Where the beats of time roll a thunder. And the mouths of birth open wide. And you walk another street. And build another castle of sand. And dream of another fig. And bury another memory. And speak prophecy from the lines of your face, and the eternity in your eyes.

Copyright ©2009

- Landon K. Brown

(featured in the poetry forum 02.26.10)