Love, desire, and self-reflection, these are the complex ideas R Bremner brings to life in his poetry. With just a few lines, Bremner achieves something quite unique and valuable: the power to put on pause the beauty that surrounds our lives and turn it into words that last forever.
TOO MANY OBSESSIONS FOR ONE LIFE…
Too many obsessions for one life to carry
will cause a back to droop eventually
Good karma like good coffee is often hard to find
when soaked in the relative liquor of the mind
Let it go, let it go, let it go, let it go
Your best chance for a life was lost long ago
Let the play go on without changing the script
so you can see it is dead where it lays in the crypt
Maybe one obsession will shock and bear fruit
and bring with it fruit flies to help it take root
So straighten your back and walk like a man
Calm and patience will formulate a plan
You may now snicker at the lives that you lost;
you know that you simply couldn’t meet the cost
QUESTIONS FROM PEGGY
Why are you here? The broken plate can hold no food for you.
Is it your belief that
denial of skin can cause bones to burn?
When is the right time to bleed?
Who decides when the ugly day is to start?
Can one strike a match to the arrival of Spring,
and recoil from its swollen promises before it blazes?
(for Peggy Vassallo)
(appeared in Diaphonous Press, 2017)
THE PARADISE OF THIEVES
You —a mosaic palace, rent with earthquakes
I —a Dutch tulip garden blown to the stars with dynamite
Us —the secret of the volcano, the secret of the revolution,
that a thing can be violent and yet fruitful
You —“It is not my fault that you came.”
I —“No, it is never your fault, it was not your fault that Troy fell.”
(after G. K. Chesterton’s “The Paradise of Thieves”)
(appeared in Diaphonous Press, 2017)
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Photos by Elliott Dunning.