Category Archives: Brendon Behlke

On the Other Side of the Trees

Just settling in
quiet calm of the horizon.
Now it’s dark.

Eyes closing never to open again.
Now it’s dark.

Along the edge of the river she stands staring at a point far away across the water. Despite the stillness there is much movement between them; the water carries on, the soul stirs. The wind wanders amidst the turmoil and stalls against the rocks. Beneath the current a big fish is terrified of being caught, but it inside it wants to die.

That in itself is okay we are told
this life is a strange and brutal beast
raging against the thought of growing old
yet wanting some control of its end.

In the trees she sees
movement amongst the shadows
drawing her in.

Her thoughts may travel beyond the threshold
enveloped in that void to the east
that strange space she had failed to comprehend
where light descends and becomes deceased

Now it’s dark.

Laika

Space was first conquered by a dog
as a child conquers an anthill
her story but an epilogue.

A tool of political will
found stray on the streets of Moscow
as a child conquers an anthill

In order to fulfill their vow
less courage, more indifference
found stray on the streets of Moscow

Hubris their deliverance
they calculated for her death
less courage, more indifference

Assuming she would run out of breath
such progress built on that one crime
they calculated for her death

Her martyrdom transcends her time
space was first conquered by a dog
such progress built on that one crime
her story but an epilogue.

The Cost of Freedom

The broken skyline
bright spires lit red with disaster
empty shells fan the flames faster
when fire and poverty entwine
the wind too will become aligned
chaotic like a child’s laughter
the broken skyline
bright spires lit red with disaster

Democracy demonstrated
and remotely detonated

To the world they have consigned
these streets filled with blood and plaster
tiled with bones of alabaster
a bit of truth in the maligned;
the broken skyline.

Without Justice Odysseus is Abandoned

[Axioms drown the truth
we annexed the world
before we adopted reason
Reason we left abandoned]

[Orphaned from brutal parentage
another Odysseus sold away
and forgotten once convenient
Achilles left raging onward]

[Journey’s end approaches soon;
know justice lives on
our death just confirms
we have no jurisdiction]

[Where is the future?
the world moves on
ever forward without us.
Relieved, the world weeps]

A Night Cap

The universe has brought this moment together
  as it has with every other
    shaped from the courage of stars
      and the tenacity of mutation
manifest as you, here, now.
   Four barbs of a flower
      buried deep within me
         and only digging deeper.
The pain I feel looks like bright colors
    smells like velvet and tree bark
        tastes like crisp ocean salt.
The pain is warm like love
     sharp like satire,
  brilliant like sunlight trapped in crystals.
The pain is knowing what a gift it is
      to have you here
in this moment
in time and space
    but know that you’re not.

Silence

“My god, why hast thou forsaken me?”
A call heard throughout history,
Always desperate to solve this unspoken mystery,
As if we’ve glimpsed the last page,
And yet were met with a different end.
Did we read the wrong book?
Or were those pages torn out because we dared to look?
We reach the end, our end, the end and as always,
It ends in a shout,
“My god, why hast thou forsaken me?”

I hear it through the threads of time,
Wrapped, quilted, packaged in plastic,
However you’ll take it,
If you can take it.
But you won’t,
Unless you were the one to make it.
Those women tied to stakes,
Burned battered and stoned,
Still tried to atone, refusing truth for punishment,
Punished even for that sentiment,
Then died, screaming,
“My god, why hast thou forsaken me?”

The sound echoes ever on,
Called up through the ages like water in an oasis,
An alien thing that lives in absurd places,
A geographical red flag that you refuse to drink.
Oh, but you’ll brag about the dehydration,
Carry your cross loud on dubs and hydraulics,
With a pair of truck nuts
And your moms name spelled out in guns.
While 10,000 children each day die from your exaggeration,
Drinking deep while they thirst for water,
Through parched lips they sputter:
“My god, why hast thou forsaken me.”

Do you hear it too,
The unholy fugue?
The dirge that’s been stuck in your playlist,
But you always skip;
To listen to some other tune dropping from dead lips.
It’s always there, I promise you,
Like the sound of gas seeping in through a shower head,
In a room full of the dead,
Or soon to be dead anyway,
Removing their clothes, and whispering quietly
As not to shake the others,
“My god, why hast thou forsaken me?”

The sound is probably so loud at this point,
And you’ve ignored it so long,
That to recognize it would be like a fish cataloging the water,
Quantifying, tagging, and reselling to those who would bother,
Looking for the finer things,
When the finer things are just the things possessed by another.
But the children hear it clearly,
It’s still fresh to them for a while,
It takes years of parents and owners telling them shut their ears,
Telling them what they really hear,
But when those same kids are locked in cages, dungeons, or in the arms of the vile,
They hear it clearly, and no one is there to plug their ears,
So they whimper through tears,
“My god, why hast thou forsaken me?”

If you hear it now,
You’re in good company,
Even the man Jesus died on the cross,
Or so they say,
With the sound resounding loud in his ears,
as he looked up to the heavens and asked,
“My god, why hast thou forsaken me?”
To no response.