Tag Archives: Brendon Behlke

Sentry

His mind was
    patch worked duct tape
on the seams of a yellowing couch
  something that burrowed into the background
    a body discolored like an old formica table
that would topple
                    beneath even the slightest weight
                                              too often.

Discolored and unsettled
          nearly balanced on a piece of cardboard
                that must always be adjusted.
    Each bruise is a decade of smoke hazed biker bars
  lucid stupors of apologies or irritability
stuck to the bottom of this ancient surface.
                            Bright pinks and deep blues
                                now dirty and faded;
                      resigned
                  collecting what remains of life
  as dust in falling will grasp at the light
              spark like fire
                      shine like diamonds
        burn like youth.

Tailored

You put on clothes
because without them
you feel your skin
                              crawl
like spilled syrup in a busy foyer.

Properly dressed,
all you can feel
are the clothes.
All anyone can see
are the clothes.

While you,
                        you,
remain safely inside;
your innocence –

           safely inside.

Our identities,
            sacrament thrust upon us,
quake, like chandeliers
  when the lights come on
              and the world starts moving.

We are always a few steps behind
              tossing in turmoil
      but dressed in stability.The only choice we ever had was
                              material.

On the Banks of the White River

There

          on the riverfront
      at the end of my finger

                                          know that darkness
                              [coquettish laughter]

Who would find humor there?

                               [laughter unending]
      where the solemn mind will oft grovel
              and surrender
                    falling upon their own sharpness
        to let the water carry them in repose
                                  out to the ends of the earth;
                                        down to the depths of the oblivion.

                                [exaltation]

There can be no champions here,
                  no joy in the present.
There can be only reflection
                                remembrance
        the smelting of one’s mettle
                to steel itself against the coming dawn.

                                [silence]

Contentment is the cancer that killed the world
            laughing as it rages past
                    against the rocks
                                frothing at the mouth.

A Garden Hose

Cast aside hastily

          it snakes through dirty blonde grass
useless now.
          The black

       graying
        the green
                    zombified.

           It makes shapes that remind me

           of ice skating.

                     some hidden magic
          in the slice of ice.

I could turn the spigot

                      only a few feet away
and bring to it a life of purpose,

                   but then            

all meaning it has would be sacrificed
                  to those that already spend their lives in the sun.

Tithonus

I want to scream
to yell out against the wind
to accost the world before me
    condemn those responsible
    curse myself too,
I can’t.

I want to rage
to lash out against that stone wall
to become violence upon the leeches
    take by force my fair share
    fight for life until death
I can’t.

I want to collapse
to fold on myself in despair
to make myself small
    diffuse into the static background
    become less than what is needed
I can’t.

I want to live honestly
to breathe the fresh air of clarity
to rest on the laurels of defined purpose
    move through the world without restraint
    act as the situation dictates
I can’t.

I can’t in this climate
so I’ll just wait
…

Dashed Against the Rocks

What prizes satin words afford!
our foreign ears made to boiling
with those that dine on finer things
describing our future delights
in fly by night campaign speeches.

Not David, but Goliaths chord
booms over the gathering throng
praising what god is left to us.
The world razed, we in its ashes,
they tell us that we are adored,

that they are umbilical cords
feeding us and making us strong.
The hollow message would echo
if the acoustics weren’t so wrong
resonating against the horde.

Insecurities long ignored
now awoken and brought along
to territories unexplored
carried away by sirens song
to rage and die on their own swords.

Juno

I felt love
the twisted turmoil of Jovian clouds
though closer than ever before
still far enough away to look like
cream colored dresses on a coffee stage
young dancers in promenade
a layered cake performance
rehearsed a million times before its premiere

I felt love
now that we were so near
that the universe had become more tangible
our vision more defined
our futures free to explore new borders.

I felt love
knowing all that came before
all those bright minds focused on a single goal
all the world in collaboration
living an alien life beyond the one we know.

Meditation

Dissect the segments into manageable bits
where they fit together, pull apart
see how they bend, break and walk.
How, as a unit, they function
to become part of a greater whole.

Now, examine where you come into this.
Has your totality served some purpose?
What motions have you made?
In what places have you fractured?
Where have you found yourself contorted?
So examined, can you pull yourself together?

All of this in concert is terrifying
as an avalanche rushing down
eager for violent embrace,
but apart – tis no more than falling snow.

It is the act of knowing a thing that makes it small;
not the crushing of it beneath heel.
Such violence will only stick with you
harder to clean off with every step.
Seek instead the kindness of curiosity,
find in it the courage to be greater;
and learn enough of yourself to know another.

Rhapsody

Who –
who
        are the wires attached to
those dangling strings must end on limbs
      loose now, but most times taught
bringing to heel those movements transposed
        imposed
by a handler at the other end
[rhapsody]

Who –
who’s joy are we seeing?
      the puppets joy can be inferred from context
          an elaborate event, well staged
  but just above their head a storm cloud of strings
like tentacles grasping from sea floor rocks;
    there is danger in this kind of truth.

Who –
who would concede so easily
    and not follow their suspicions to the puppeteer?
  Surely this rhapsody is theirs.
      they move the strings to the songs they sing
bringing the puppet to life,
  though when the wires die,
so too the light in their eyes
  for the mind within is troubled.

Who –
        who then is rhapsody?
    is it anybody or nobody?
        The mirage of a destiny we wish to manifest
from either end of those strings.

Caprice

Why go planting rocks to build walls
when all you want is the space between?

The borders we design around ourselves
we hope will limit us to a successful path
advancing past options that otherwise distract.
The walls that line the road ahead
lead everyone down beneath the ground dead.

The way forward is a dream of the people
the sleepless nights of the nation
and the slumbering horror of the ego.

Venture forward no longer, enjoy the empty moments;
forward is inevitable, let it come to you.
Pursue instead the present, hunt it down
track it through the vibrations of entropy
and subdue it beneath the canopy of mortality;
that dark carapace that keeps us writhing.

The victory may cost you success
but it will birth in you the knowledge
of what success really is.