Two Poems by Barn Brand

Lost

I find myself sitting at a hard used grimy kitchen table with a green and white checkered tablecloth that leaves half the table exposed
The table is surrounded by four chairs, three clearly are set mates to the table sharing a four leaf clover design carved into their upright, the fourth, the one I’m sitting on, looks more like a junk store giveaway, its ripped green vinyl seat cushion pox marked with cigarette burns
I don’t know this place
I don’t know why I am here or what is expected of me
I’m not sure I know exactly who I am
My name is on the tip of my tongue, it just won’t let me spit it out
I keep trying but it refuses to budge
I’m afraid I will swallow it
And lose my name forever
I’d like to go home, but I really don’t know what that means
I’m scared, no I’m frightened, no I’m terrified

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Mud

Bob said he did not come from dust
Of this he was certain

His life was too difficult to trace back to dust
Dust floats in the lightest sweet breath of the wind
Dust can leave the gravity of pain and witness the cosmos reborn

No, Bob was the descendant of mud, thick deep wet, boot sucking mud

Add a little lightning
Add a little DNA
Add a halfway decent sculptor
and you got Bob

When Bob passed away, my broken heart and Bob’s ashes waited for a thunderstorm

After the ground was soaked and puddling, I took the tractor out beyond the farm line and poured Bob into a mud filled trench and ground him in with my work boots. It was a slow process, every time I raised my leg, I was at war with the mud that wanted to pull me down to join Bob

I waited there for lightning, used Bob’s Bowie knife to draw blood from my wedding ring finger, watched my DNA join Bob and his mud and prayed that he would come back to me

But the mix was not right

I turned back to the farmhouse that Bob built by hand during the first 3 years that we farmed, and started the journey of living with my memories

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Bronx born and raised Barn Brand, age 77, has been writing poetry since the age of 12. He feels that his words have now come of age and are ready to be read. Barn is a member of the poetry circles of West Milford, N.J. and Yuma, AZ. – the two communities where he lives his life. When not reading or writing or gardening Barn pedals down the road averaging 4,500 miles each year. His work has appeared on The Recovering Self, and in the MasterLink. His work will also appear later this year in the Paterson Literary Review.

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Author’s Note:

To me, the writing of poetry is an attempt to bridge a feeling from one mind to another – sometimes we transfer intense emotions that attach to the reader’s core, sometimes what we offer is more lightly felt, but always it is the emotion rather than the story that is paramount.

Grief, lust, depression, love, hate, forgiveness, reverence, humor, and harmony – our emotional history, how we integrate it and how we share it makes us who we are – and that is why poetry matters.