Recent poems

Quicksilver, Slowsilver, Stillsilver

(for D)

All these years,

dreaming of your molten life,

your hot, mirrored heart.

Silver moonlight at dawn-

I’ll be sorry if I unblock (---)”s profile.

I just don’t want to know,

I’ll be sorry.

Where do we go…

no one can predict our motion,

our entanglements

that takes us from one end of the universe

to the other,

yet 3000 miles

is unbearably long

to your embrace.

Bolides.

All night,

green fire and loud booms

influence dreams.

A war in heaven,

you as Helen of Troy

sending angels into glorious battle.

8/26/10

Brian Moreau

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Heat Wave '10

The sun is lighting the world
into a Kurosawa film,
everywhere,
the bright orange corpse of grass.

The rain stays away out of shame.
One by one,
we find ourselves breaking down,
confessing,
hot kitchens and bedrooms
become silent and guilty.

The A/C drones the longest catechism
in history,
the warm breezes asking:
"If the rain won't forgive you,
how can a lover?
Or a heart that's grown to hate you?"

7/21/10

Brian Moreau

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yellow moon behind clouds, October 1978


I wish you could have seen it love.

Mom and I were shopping in Fitchburg on a school night.
She bought me a Battlestar Galactica T-shirtand then burned rubber along the back roads to get me in bed an hour past bedtime.

That night, I dreamed I lived in a kingdom ruled by fellow children.
All we ever ate was spicy pasta and meatballs.
Then in my dream I was back on that lonely road

my Mom drove to get me home.

I saw a street light in the distance and it broke my heart.

I wanted that beautiful light to never go out,
shine on me always.

I know dreams should remain private
but sometimes they are the only things we can share,
that little bit of rope we throw to each other

when the voice of the abyss is loud, insistent.

04/28/09
Brian Moreau

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Depth Charge

I choose to believe

that the sailors found

the blossoms of light in the depths

beautiful

and that, come dawn,

the sight of the ocean littered

with U-boat debris could only

be considered a good omen,

one less enemy stalking them

thru the water.

Some days,

I’m only a bright flash in your shadows,

a weapon of love fired scattershot

into the dark.

Some days,

armistice seems impossible,

our hearts faltering

under the crushing pressure

of everything destiny has hidden from us.

6/9/09

Brian Moreau

About a week ago...

...I had a very strange dream. There were these people, not many of them but a few, who seemed to be the ones that were really in charge of...everything. I don't know how else to put it, they seemed to be the ones who pulled the strings of everyone and everything on Earth. And they were not nice people. The leader, in particular, was a cruel and hateful person, being around him made you feel sick.

Some friends and I decided that since we were the only ones in the world who knew the truth about this group of people, it was up to us to put a stop to them, by any means necessary. They seemed to live in another dimension. You could only get to their "world" by an elevator in an office building. Before we went to confront them, each of us tried to arm ourselves any way that we could. All I could manage to rustle up was an old red hammer and a rusty toy saw.

We took the elevator, which takes you to a large field in their universe. Immediately upon arriving, a schism formed in our group. Half of us thought it was a mistake to fight these people and should try to find a peaceful way of dealing with them. My side of the group thought we should fight to be free of them, it was obvious that they were building up to something very awful that would hurt countless people and they would not listen to any peace talk.

Before our argument was resolved, I seemed to black out. When I came to, I was lying down in the back seat of a car. A woman was driving. She said she was taking me to where my friends were and that someone wanted to talk to me. She tossed a cell phone to me. On it was my brother, who I haven't spoken with for a few years. He was quietly taunting me for going on this mission. I listened but didn't say anything, hoping it wouldn't take too long to get to where my friends were and that we could somehow pull this off. That's where the dream ended.

***

As strange as all that was, what happened next was even stranger to me. I awoke and had the sensation that between the end of my dream and when I woke up, the universe had been "paused" or shut down for billions of years and had just been started up again. I can't really describe it any better. It's as if reality was a computer that had been shut down for billions of years and when it was restarted, I, as a "program" in that computer was aware of the time span that had passed but (thankfully!) did not experience the actual passage of that time. It was kind of pleasant and relaxing but I was acutely aware of the vast gap from one moment of existence to the other.

I don't think I've ever experienced any thing like that before. Has that happened to any of you?

Forgotten great songs part one

This is going to be a new "feature" I do from time to time, focusing on wonderful songs by well known artists that don't get the same amount of notice as some of that artists other songs but deserve it. I'll try to do at least one of these a week.

***

Snow In San Anselmo by Van Morrison. Album: Hardnose The Highway

I've always thought it was a shame that the general public never delved into Van Morrison's work beyond Brown Eyed Girl and Moondance. Those are great songs, to be sure, but there countless other gems in his catalog that many people will never get to hear and honestly don't care to, because they aren't bouncy pop songs.

One such song is Snow... It tells a simple story of people sitting in a 24 hour pancake house in a desert town, watching the first snowfall the town has seen in about thirty years. The music and mood has a tenseness and anxious urgency that seems to imply that there's more going on here than meets the eye. Almost like we're missing half the story, the characters in the song seem relived for the distraction of the freak snow storm...but a distraction from what? We're offered few clues, perhaps only "a madman looking for a fight" or "if you suffer from insomnia/you can spend your time away." Morrison himself has said this song is just a sketch of a moment in time and doesn't have any deeper meanings. I like to think this song is an example of a piece taking on life beyond what it's creator intended.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpcsThJEgWM&playnext=1&videos=55CIB-Aqt64

***

Here's a peek at future songs I plan to cover on here:

Bob Dylan-Jokerman

Elvis Presley-Good Time Charlie's Got The Blues

Pink Floyd-If

David Bowie-The Motel

The Beach Boys-Disney Girls (1957)

Frank Zappa-Catholic Girls

The Talking Heads-The Facts Of Life

I'll try to think of even more soon!