Category Archives: Brendon Behlke

A Confrontation

I cross the threshold between two rooms,
to see you there, tall and bright;
happy again to let your words spill out,
carelessly like a flagon carried mid dance,
confident there is plenty more
and rags at hand to clean the floor.

I haven’t seen you like that in a generation,
who we were- long since old and dying,
making way for who we are now;
reduced to somber stones with names-
                                  only visited on occasion.

I feel those old ghosts resurrected,
bursting through coffins, through earth and the fog of years;
desperate for relevance again.
Crying out please, see me friend!
through laughter breathe life into these lungs!”

But how could you now see the ghost of me,
or anything between who you are
and who, in all this time, I have come to be?

Joy has propositioned you from this world,
while I, before, was naught but misery.

Let me retreat, satisfied as a memory.
Settle those spirits within and lay them to rest,
I beg the fates on our behalf,
please, don’t see me, lest
            in all these years,
                  neither of us be free.

Betelgeuse

What thread could be suspended
between these two points of light;
the seams of these worlds brought together
by a string of moments ad nauseam.

Mountains rise like waves;
crash into the earth-
peaks, valleys, ranges.
Life explodes in jubilation,
dancing in the rain;
collapses beneath its own weight,
pulls itself back up again.

A cloud of chaos still warm from the womb,
desperate for purchase,
finding order, each other, everything…
and then,
                nothing

except these stitches in the darkness,
that imperceptible sparks of cognition
will embrace as fire
firmament
stars
longing
future
and sorrow.
Never wrong or right,
merely eager to learn the light…

to quilt together existence from distance
and rest in relief as long as time permits.

Cthulhu

Weak kneed they fall in their seats,
the tendrilled god rises.
Bright like starshine,
dark as the crushing void;
it is everything and nothing in concert.

From false fire it reaches out to them,
entombs them in eel like appendages;
not for wont,
there is no desire there,
impartially-
as a thresher to an arm amongst the wheat.

Such demeanor leaves them unafraid,
only-
awestruck by the breadth of its maw;
all those sharp teeth polished
reflecting back at them everything they want to see.
It is only its nature to eat,
theirs to be devoured;
taste nothing.

Discus

It hangs there over long,
a middle finger to the sky;
a chin flick to the ground,
amorous
only towards and for freedom.

A heavy hand may cast it out,
and it will settle in ones more gentle,
but freedom
is all it is and ever will be.

Let others seek it out in envy
finding only futility.
In the dirt or in hands,
it is nothing once stopped,
pinned down;
anchored to another’s will.

The Dirt

The dirt, brittle cracks exposed,
hidden beneath flowers in rows, and rows, and rows-

begs for the darkness that hides the sun’s rising,
the labor gestating beyond the horizon.

Let the torrent wash over those wounds,
like sand over the dessert dunes;

let it fill the countless spaces between-
make them whole, placid, serene.

Rationalize the absurd landscapes
with a throng of rivers, ponds, and lakes;

though the myriad of cracks remain,
the water gives the earth an even plain-

stable enough for all the life we know
to drink deep and grow, and grow, and grow.

The Rain Barrel

Hard times like wine on the skin,
some blush between the discarded inhibitions.
Verdant memories soaking in slowly,
like ancient intercontinental trade routes;
the silent contents growing louder with history,
as too the benefits.

On sunny days, while grace shines upon us,
the vessel looks out of place.
Less than useless, an abuse of the time we have,
to remind us of the times we hate.
It aches in the light, becoming brittle planks,
on which our eyes will walk briefly,
and plunge into the depths of the day,
escape or drown, it’s all the same.

But on those rainy days they come to collect
all our troubles overflowing,
and they tell stories only the rain can hear;
thunderous applause after each quiet punchline.

It is dangerous to consume what the sky gives us,
for it may return our own gifts.