Two Poems

by Brandon Shane

A Breath Together

This time last year I was homeless in Los Angeles,

it was only a week, along a street seldom taken,

an older man had allowed me in his tent,

and we could hear the freeway; all day, all night,

police officers thrusting their harpoons into the flesh

of beached whales, dark corridors of rogue waves

crashing upon a country stitched into silence,

and every language was drug into compliance

of a system centuries in mad spiral, as houses

all around were mere investments; unoccupied,

another morning violently snoring on concrete,

and like an amateur diver gone too deep, began

to feel a sickness looming towards calamity,

but it was Spring, and the wind was pollinated,

witnessing dandelions rise from the grave.

The old man once more invited me into his tent

after scavenging enough quarters to buy

an apple fritter he gently cut with a plastic knife,

a harsh cup of coffee; jet black, oiled throat,

ceiling mesh creating a sense of confession,

sunlight bathing our temples in warmth,

his white hair, scars from decades fighting the world.

God had brought us together; this man my priest,

and for once I began to follow

as he pressed the hot cup between my lips

forming rivers as liquid feeds dry deserts,

led by a bite; sugar, apple, cream

messing down my jaw.

Returning months later, I learned he was found

unresponsive with the novel I gave him;

Maurice, which just so happened to be his name.

The Sonoran Heat

In the dry Mexican air, all the horses were thirsty,

and the working men plowing fields held nothing

but their tools. The sun was a great terror & among

its lackeys were the broiling dirt, the drought, sweat.

I watched the desert cactus wane & bend, carcasses

among a valley of immortals realizing their eternal hell.

Golden flowers browned porous, as the missions were

full of priests and nuns dousing heads in dirty water.

Breathing wrought razors, dryness that serrated the lungs.

Those in houses stared behind old windows as mothers

prayed to crosses for rain, others danced for its return.

All of us gazed at the burning world like caged animals.

I have lived amid fire and ice, and as the dusty piano

is played, and the violins are strung, there is a metric

of simultaneous doom, children whimpering, scribes

inspired by lightning, religion had for the first time.

BIO: Brandon Shane is a poet, born in Yokosuka Japan. You can see his work in the Berlin Literary Review, Acropolis Journal, Grim & Gilded, Sophon Lit, Marbled Sigh, RIC Journal, Heimat Review, Ink in Thirds, Discretionary Love, among many others. He would later graduate from Cal State Long Beach.