Tag Archives: Brendon Behlke

Heat

The pilot light defies the dark
               a flickering of potential
                              this is every Tuesday now.

What was at one time once a month
               then every few weeks
                              has become common place somehow

Though the basement is an abandoned place
               left to the wires, pipes and tubes
                              of all the hidden movements in the house
                                             this quiet void
                              is the most ambitious.

Sunset on the Patio

Where the landscape ends in bright red fire
I find my thoughts there in stone – petrified
from here it is a wall of unknown desire
though from there those moments are denied.
A conclusion is only a new beginning
a place where the avenues of time left suspending
waiting for that agency to be employed
and leave the other possibilities destroyed.
Who in this position would choose life
when death is the outcome of those choices;
valid protests extinguished for those silenced voices.
Decisions are oft rife with such strife.
Rather let us sit in repose and ponder;
permit those possibilities to endlessly wander.

The World is Yours

Locked in wood stocks
the world bound and wound up
             spinning at the whim of a child’s hand
an expectant finger
             waiting for a place to land.

             Like spearmen to a charging horse
the blow lands and stops it dead
a digit stalled sets the course.

In that space dreams are made;
             a poor facsimile of an immutable thing
                           quieted by innocence
                                        inquisitiveness
                                        inspiration
                                        imagination
             and thus made immutable again.

The world in a child’s mind is but a word
             until a place is named
         held down
   and claimed for their future self

Icarus

Where does it all end?
these places that rise over the mountainside
speak of visions that call from on the other side
but still we are left here to descend.
When we climb those monstrous places
we find terrible things that hunt us down.
Like shook rocks tumbling to the ground,
we are a disaster fleeing from hidden faces.

Have they seen to the world beyond?
Adopted the task to keep us at bay
as if those fruits were too sweet for us
and this is how they respond.
or is it something more to keep us away?
Is the rest of it all disastrous?

The Mountains are Silver with Winter’s Leavings

  Black pines                         the moon weeps
to see them drag that thing screaming
                           a bundle of noise
             given agency in sound
                           such luxuries are deceiving

                           Red lights│
                                        blue│
                           silver strobes of tinsel

                          The colors slip over the tilled snow
             like a long gown dragged over the stairs
they whisper beneath the fugue of fear
             those concerned cries calling out for a close ear
                           for someone who cares.

But the sound is too loud
             it bludgeons empathy

Pity the trees that must stay
             to witness such horrors
                           ever protesting in the wind
                                        but unable to look away.

English Channel in Late Spring

A cold wind is blowing – across blue mysteries
where fabled depths are made – with dreadful histories
the fog that hides our shores – honest beyond distance
reminds us there is more – than water’s resistance

Those sunken tragedies – speak to us in the mist
like lost souls rekindled – struggling to persist
to have their stories told – in hidden waves crashing
a song of desperate need – sung with somber splashing

Gulls and hearts hear those words – cry out in harmony
though the mind binds their mouths – and call it larceny
Why should time take those things – we enjoy in life now
and give them to the past – that we have disavowed?

Those far off shores stay hid – behind veils of regret
while we must remain here – on all our sides beset
by the antiquities – of an empire long dead.
From those sober ashes – we always look ahead.

Inspiration

Immeasurable
             though wanting so badly to be defined

Does definition ever really help a thing
             or is it the act of being refined
suddenly less than what it had been all this time?
             This page was once porcelain potential
                           poised for possibilities

             now it is scarred
permanently not a million other things
Defined
             measured
                           caged

             How many worlds
                           we turn to ash
to fill a blank page.

The Frightful Things

Shh, be still now, or they’ll hear you,
at first they were just loud and mean
preaching gospel, angry or obscene
we thought they’d pass back into the blue
Shh, be still now, or they’ll hear you.

but they came from older things
long dormant, though well maintained machines
and without challenge their power grew and grew
shh, be still now, or they’ll hear you.

Enfield, NH

The wind is howling
white noise
             percussion against the window pains
the sound outside fighting to get in

             Could it be the warmth of the fire?
                           the dead trees split and parched
                                        combust and conspire
             to put the whole place to flames
if only they could
             transcend the bricks between them.

Some are born to burn
             others are made to build

Still others are outside
                           in the moonlight
             battling with the turmoil

Silence can be so loud in an empty house
             too afraid to burn.