Tag: Brian Beatty

Two Poems by Brian Beatty

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Silhouettes

A half dozen hawks
floated in the white sky

above an anonymous
river’s rushing brown floodwaters.

The sun above that scene was blinding,
beating down, drying

the bank’s loose prairie sand into cement.

There I stood like a monument
to tourism, lost in my phone.

Just one dumb picture of the birds’
perfectly choreographed circles

was all I wanted.
But they were already gone.

*

The Yawn

I’m so tired tonight
I worry I might

swallow the world.

*

Brian Beatty is the author of five small press poetry collections and a spoken word album. Beatty’s poems have appeared in Appalachian Journal, Conduit, CutBank, Evergreen Review, Exquisite Corpse, Gulf Coast, Hobart, The Missouri Review, The Moth, ONE ART, The Quarterly, Rattle and The Southern Review.

What Inspiration Looks Like by Brian Beatty

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What Inspiration Looks Like

The fat orange stray that appears
to live in the woods behind my house
shows no interest in civilization.

I’ve not once seen him look hungry
or lost.

He’s got my vote.

*

Brian Beatty is the author of five small press poetry collections and a spoken word album. His poems and short stories have appeared in Anti-Heroin Chic, Appalachian Journal, BULL, Conduit, Cowboy Jamboree, CutBank, Dark Mountain, Evergreen Review, Exquisite Corpse, Floyd County Moonshine, Gulf Coast, Hobart, McSweeney’s, The Missouri Review, The Moth, ONE ART, The Quarterly, Rattle, Seventeen, The Southern Review and Sycamore Review.

How Hometowns Work by Brian Beatty

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How Hometowns Work

A bent old woman
wrapped in two coats

drags a folding cart
full of groceries

through a crosswalk.
A blaring freight train

blasts across
another intersection

at the far end
of the same street.

Every other soul
in town, including mine,

sits trapped between
in idling cars belching smoke.

You can read all about it
in the yellowed newspaper pages

that cover the windows
of out-of-business

flower shops
and storefront churches.

*

Brian Beatty is the author of five poetry collections and a spoken word album. Beatty’s poems and short stories have appeared in Anti-Heroin Chic, Appalachian Journal, Conduit, Cowboy Jamboree, CutBank, Evergreen Review, Floyd County Moonshine, Gulf Coast, McSweeney’s, The Missouri Review, The Moth, The Museum of Americana, ONE ART, Phoebe, The Quarterly, Rattle, The Southern Review, Strange Horizons, and Sycamore Review.

Dirt to Dirt by Brian Beatty

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Dirt to Dirt

Two times
I’ve lived
across the
road from
cemeteries.

More than those
sad families
coming and
going to bury
and remember,

I’m curious
about the grave
diggers with
their foul
language and

heavy equipment.
Every death
must be just
another boss
to them.

*

Brian Beatty is the author of five poetry collections: Magpies and Crows; Borrowed Trouble; Dust and Stars: Miniatures; Brazil, Indiana: A Folk Poem; and Coyotes I Couldn’t See. Beatty’s poems and stories have appeared in The American Journal of Poetry, Anti-Heroin Chic, Conduit, Cowboy Jamboree, CutBank, Evergreen Review, Exquisite Corpse, Gulf Coast, Hobart, McSweeney’s, The Missouri Review, The Moth, The Quarterly, Rattle, RHINO, Seventeen, The Southern Review and Sycamore Review. In 2021 Beatty released Hobo Radio, a spoken-word album featuring banjo and guitar improvisations by Charlie Parr.