Joe mooned the audience at the Open Mic reading
the other night at the Millburn, NJ Library.
I knew he had it in him,
I was just hoping that I would never see it.
Joe always complained
about the “Intelligentsia” in the poetry world.
We would go to workshops,
they would give him some mundane topic
and expect that he would write in esoteric terms
that not even a swami could interpret.
“These people would expect lyrical phases
even if the topic was to write about a fart,”
he told me once.
“Some things are just what they are,
and they aren’t lyrical.”
So when he read his poem at the library
about the outhouse
that was on the Western Pennsylvania farm where he grew up
he started to hear some snickers
saw those condescending smiles in the audience
like “here goes Joe again,”
and all of his William Paterson College A.A. bred inhibitions
broke down, he just lost it.
There at the podium he mooned them,
and that just about said it all,
but it didn’t really.
For you see, if certain writers who were acceptable to
the Intelligentsia had done that, it would have been innovative,
avant-garde. They would have put his picture
on the wall at Poets House in New York
written about it in Poets and Writers Magazine.
But Joe had the wrong initials behind his name -
A.A. instead of M.F.A.
So now as we have a beer at Mechlin’s Corner Tavern
Joe asked me about the old poetry haunts
and Mrs. Snooty who black listed him.
Afterwards he jumps into his chauffeured driven limousine,
he now having become quite the cult idol,
much sought after reader,
with his own booking agent, traveling first class
from college to college throughout the United States.
That’s what one minute of fame, on You Tube,
“Mooning the Intelligentsia”, can do for you.
Ray Brown
His sister read some of his poetry
and wanted to argue him out of it.
It wasn’t that it didn’t sound right -
it just didn’t sound right.
The philosophy didn’t make sense
and it wasn’t real world–
it wasn’t in accordance with the values
by which he had been raised.
It wasn’t,
and it wasn’t,
and it wasn’t!
and very little about
what it was.
Arguing with a poem is like arguing with a symphony
you either like it, or you don’t.
It doesn’t need to make a point
it moves you, or it doesn’t
works for you, or not.
Arguing doesn’t change anything
it’s just arguing.
Beside if you argue too much with a poet
he may write a poem about you arguing
and then you will really have something
to argue about.
So leave the poor brother poet alone.
You are not supposed to argue with a poem.
Ray Brown
In elementary school
I had a writer’s bump.
On the top upper side of my right middle finger.
I think it grew from squeezing my pencil
too hard and too long.
Do kids today get a writer’s bump?
Or know what it, or even a pencil, is?
Have they both been replaced
with carpel tunnel syndrome?
Has the bump gone the way
of six foot snow drifts that we used to trudge in,
to and from school, both ways uphill?
and recess
and the milk bottle outside the front door in early morning
and marbles dropped in a shoe box hole
and simple times
and simple talks
uncomplicated friendships
simple games
and a prayer to start the day?
Do they take a shower after gym,
or do they do they even have it (gym or a shower)?
Parallel bars in dusty storage closets,
horses that today are used to sit on and smoke
when you can sneak in the school basement.
Dresses with sleeves and backs
and underwear that stays under
pants with belts
lockers without locks
hallways without cell phones
and manners….
and good morning
and there is a reason to go home.
I remember the days when my writer’s bump would swell
from drawing countless penmanship circles
thump a little from blood rushing through my veins.
Now I look down, realize it is gone,
I had almost forgotten it.
Could I have remembered it better than it was?
Failed to remember that it really, really hurt?
Forgotten why our parents thought we were a lost generation.
Understand really –
that you cannot walk to, and from school,
both ways – uphill?
And it doesn’t snow enough anymore anyway.
In my heart, I fear that kids today
miss the writer’s bump more than I do.
Ray Brown
When once an author was asked
which of his works he liked the best,
He replied,
“The one I am with at the time.”
This struck the hearer strange.
Does not he have his favorite?
I know I do.
Until a passerby remarked:
“If I were to ask you,
‘Which of your children do you like the best?’
What would be your reply?
Ray Brown
I’m getting tired now.
My eyes are heavy.
My hand is slow.
Even my pen loses patience with me.
People have wearied of coaxing me to sleep.
They’re afraid at this moment, I will not arise.
Would you want responsibility for persuading
one to rest when you knew they would not awake?
So let me go –
Let me be…
Let my pen be the one who runs out of ink.
Not me.
Ray Brown
My wife is concerned you may believe
what I have written.
“A poet’s work is always autobiographical”,
she says.
Crisis
Doubt
Spiritual uncertainty
Spontaneous insanity
Dark sides and black feelings
Constant references to suicide
Loneliness
Yearning
Lost loves
A continuing unfulfilled search for true love.
These tales are of a person she does not like to know;
disturbing – especially the search for true love unfulfilled .
I tell her not to worry.
These are just life’s observations.
“Just Poetic License”, I explain.
“When Manilow sings ‘Trying to Find the Feelings Again’
His wife does not sit home crying I am sure.”
“Listen Buster Brown”
(An endearing reference I assume,
to the shoes of our youth)
“Listen Buster Brown…
“You have driver’s license, don’t you?
And I know you still speed”
Ray Brown
These hands are like the satin edges
of a new born baby’s blanket
tucked tenderly beneath the future
swaddling the present through the night.
Resting infant.
Comforted from the night’s dark shadows
sheltered from the world’s worries
by these hands of protection –
Hands at rest
at the edge of a weary day
one placed on top of the other
wondering what the next will bring.
Now grasp loosely, but firmly, a pencil
to play yet a silent poet’s score
on the back of an envelope
from the credit card company.
Ray Brown
Words are flights of fancy
wafting through the sky,
carried on the breeze,
clouds of snow white slate
on which a poet paints his dreams.
Words are woven in tapestries
brilliant colors and hues
threads entwined
snaring dreams on the catchers of the mind.
Words glistening
captured on the spider webs of emotion
against an early morning sun
dew drops clinging,
relief for a parched soul.
Words are beasts of burden
saddled with a message
thoughts secured in stirrups
ridden through the deserts of wilderness
that seek an oasis.
Words are folded and snipped by the poet
within the papier-maché of a delicate doily
a pattern of beauty
lays flat against the table of life
or suspended in air on the strings of a heart beat.
Words are mine, yet not –
they are free agents of spirit
transparent images –
passageways without walls
by way of which a warm translucent light shines.
Beacon to those who follow a dream.
Ray Brown
I taste the salt of life.
Took measure of the sea,
and wait for the sun to awaken
a melody of words.
My pen the hammer.
This pad the anvil
against which the chimes of life
resonant.
I enjoy this smithing.
Can I craft an iron
which bespeaks that joy to you?
Ray Brown
