Three Poems by Charlie Brice

Sky

According to Jim Harrison, when we die
it will be like falling through the sky.

According to Bob Dylan, even the birds
are chained to the skyway.

According to me, the blur of the Milky Way
in the Michigan night-sky is the footprint of infinity.

And in morning, how do clouds decide to float by us,
those jellyfish of the heavens? How long have they spied
on us? Do they congregate, gossip about what they’ve observed?

If enough of them are interested they huddle
together, the easier to hear the juicy parts,
and give us shade that hides their busybody meanderings.

They must hate us for dumping tons of poison
into their sky-home. Still, on those Magritte days,
they parade by us, dispense wonder, offer forgiveness.

*

Dan

Why didn’t you go to Paris, or even Reno?
You liked to gamble. Remember when you
went to the Superbowl with your son and won
back the thousands you spent to get there
on the crap tables in Vegas? Yeah, you could
have gone to Vegas. Instead, you went and died.

Starting a year or so ago my dreams have
been populated by the dead. Last night I
dreamed that I was reminding Rollo May
of the dinner we had with Maurice Freedman
in San Diego in the eighties. They are both
dead—long dead. Do I have to put you
in my dreams now, Dan?

We had such fun at Pirate games before you
decided you didn’t like me anymore. Our
friendship died long before you did. Still,
I miss you, old friend. Maybe I’ll see you
in a dream.

*

Wisdom

I had to admire the effort. My
mother-in-law, who couldn’t
stand me, presented me,
every Christmas and birthday,
with owl figurines—
some crystal,
some wood,
some agate
or sandstone.

After trying to find something
positive about me, she settled
on wisdom. She decided that
I would like it if I thought
that she thought I was wise
and, as we all know,
owls are wise.

Somewhere Freud wrote
that, because there’s
an unconscious,
it’s impossible to really
fool anybody.

*

Charlie Brice won the 2020 Field Guide Poetry Magazine Poetry Contest and placed third in the 2021 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Prize. His sixth full-length poetry collection is Miracles That Keep Me Going (WordTech Editions, 2023). His poetry has been nominated three times for the Best of Net Anthology and the Pushcart Prize and has appeared in Atlanta Review, The Honest Ulsterman, Ibbetson Street, Chiron Review, The Paterson Literary Review, Impspired Magazine, and elsewhere.