Tag Archives: Brendon Behlke

Sayyidina

Sayyidna, my desert flower
the author of this refrain
though it is I that write it,
the ink, as always, bears her name.
The blossom of her life
contrast against the sterile sands
celebrated by each sparkled grain
inspires air to dance about the land.
She tells of water when it is unseen
she gifts color when the world is palid
She is thorns adorned on the defenseless
She is truth amidst the invalid
Where the sun takes all it sees
she will fruit with dew.
Where the sand consumes
she nourishes until I am renewed.
Though the dunes shift eternal
she, as always, will remain;
Sayyidina, my desert flower
the author of this refrain.

Between Lives

The blue light from the dash says it’s 2 am
otherwise it is dark outside of time.
Off the road, lost in nothing
the sounds are relegated to engine tumbles
and words that should have been spoken years ago.
To silence them only raises questions
louder than the answers they beckon.

In a place called home but a few hours past
three beds are filled with dreamers
who will wake to half the house their eyes set upon
while I will be awake still
dreaming of the opportunity to tell a story
where I am not a villain.

I whisper words to them they may never hear,
but deep inside they’ll still know;
though my voice is far away
I am always close.

An Ode to Blinking

The sliver between our open eyes
a slice between frames of light
that go on and on and on
like the water-colored frivolity
that supports those old cartoons;
bright characters in stark contrast
oblivious to the stylistic dysmorphia.

A flash of darkness
quickly set aside by the bookends of life
a pause so faint as to be forgotten
lost in the Kaleidoscope of colors;
the years as shapes, tumbling
on and on and on again
always different, always the same.

The universe moves unchallenged,
pufts of turmoil in the vast darkness,
and in that turmoil
flecks of life – flint sparks
quick flashes of light in the darkness
an irony like blinking
that goes on and on and on.

Good Grief

The day they shot our boy farrow
I did not submit myself before them
a disaster of the loss consumed by tears
nor did I sense any cause to implore them
about what his death might cost.

I was told the weight of his life
surpassed by far the weight of his death
and the space he left in his place
would leave us all bereft
only of the success we lost in his theft.

We could not in good conscience
succumb to the threat implied of his end,
silence ourselves in the loudness of his death,
and in doing, ignore the fortune of finality
to give way to the future and end the past.

Thus, when at last,  our boy farrow died
I, as well as anyone else that day
did celebrate all the rewards that
were said to be coming our way
while the executioner looked
for a new soul to blame for our dismay.

Citizens United

I wish I had enough
to budget for my vote
the cost of the ear
my representative
long since entombed in gold.

While we scrawl on paper
which evil is lesser
our betters tell us
that they are citizens
and they are united

behind something greater
than any we could wield,
as many zeros
trailing as for us lay
ahead, there to impede;

for though voting is free
positions cost money
and it behooves them
to give money power
while we still reward greed.

We too are citizens
but are not united,
we blame each other
for the lack of funding
we would need to contend

but if I could afford
to bend the golden ear,
I’d cry out in pain,
give voice to our freedoms
dying in avarice.

Khaos

Khaos reigned that one great day in June
when the world fell beneath a pall of gloom
while he brought low all that was known
and left only the flowers of violence in bloom

That terrible sound as he traced the ground
with his one companion and friend
a blood-rusted axe that shined where it cut
longing only for flesh to rend

And rend it did until it was sated
by as many souls as there are stars
those struck, expired and those missed, did live
though their hearts were enveloped in scars

For none could stand against those bloodied hands
the day that Khaos reigned,
they died or they fell beneath his knell
and the world remains forever stained.

Echoes

I don’t want to be stuck down here
the metal creaking
my form popping into something smaller
               and smaller
                              and smaller.

Without light sound is the last reflection
               I see myself
               I see myself
breaking,
                              like breaths fighting for relevance.

               I see myself
               less than I was when that sound was made
                              and diminishing quickly.

               I see myself
               and no one else
futile, trapped beneath the world.

I’m Not Coming Home

Matted felt holds tight against the skin
               the candles that light the night
have cried themselves to stubs
               flickering their last efforts
against the tired authors eyes.

The words he writes seep out like sweat
               something pushed through the pores
that in their passing cools the flesh
               and leaves a heavy weight to the air
growing darker.

The paper beneath his heavy arm
               is folded meticulously for the future
it takes the ink like a dead thing
               pecked apart by carrion birds
the message he writes, hidden bones
               beneath pulpy flesh.

Mumbling the shadows of those scribbled prose
               he tears up against the weakness of his voice
recognizing it now as an alien thing
               only to be heard again as an echo
on some other minds gramophone.

When the words run out
               he will seal it with wax
a few months later it will be read
               by which time he will be dead
resurrected only in those words
               written, though, unsaid
played like an old record
               from memories of higher fidelity.