Poetry: Selections from Tony Brewer

Yule Be Sorry

There are times I wish I could be

Christian for my family

It might simplify things

knowing for sure we’re all going

to the same place, or places

Owning all the same curse words

 

They ask advice one by one

on how to deal with the crazy one

which is everyone else but me

because I am the one on the other end

of the phone right now

 

I was never baptized

but I did 8 years of therapy

& that gives me an advantage

in these dark times when prayer

won’t let them not let

their buttons be pushed

 

I tell them that little voice

inside whispering negative things

AND the sibling who shouts them

you cannot believe that nonsense

Sometimes you have to harden your heart

Boundaries are for your safety

It’s OK to say no to family

On & on my sermon drones

 

In brighter times my therapist

is an enemy to them

to be vanquished

preventing me from being togeeeeether

with the other inmates in the rec room

 

At some point somebody is crying

& I just let it happen without comment

like Tim used to do to me

on a couch in a calm medicated office

I walked out of there every Wednesday

feeling refreshed & reborn

any words of comfort sounding like

the closing of a door & another opening

 

When I hang up 

I don’t carve another notch in my pentagram

It’s not fair they have to hit

up a dirty old heathen like me

when God is not love

& Jesus is not the way

 

We are grim with this knowledge

sad hopeless & related

I have less & less desire to say

I told you so 

but it never goes away like my faith

I hold my tongue

thrilled to at last not be the one

who ruins Christmas

Some Owners

The pistol fell out

of her jeans

at a poetry reading

Nice people

smokers

She came to spit

at the open mic

& he held it for her

She couldn’t go 

up there with it

armed when she wants

to be vulnerable

She kills it

takes the pistol back 

when she sits down

He puts his cowboy

hat back on as they leave

us all appreciating

her commitment 

to a revolver

There are many Krogers

Outer Kroger

Krogotten

The People’s Kroger

John Kroger Mellencamp

 

across town 

at Krogucci

a transitioning

cashier further

along on the journey

 

fresh brushstrokes

on a new painting

 

is the open human

I pick instead

of the U-Scan bot

 

I like humanity present

making efforts & working

 

on themselves like me

 

two citizens connected

through commerce 

 

I help bag & mutter

have a good one

under black plastic

 

electric eyes installed 

by corporate heads

who never

 

show their faces

around here

Tony Brewer is a poet and audio artist from Bloomington, Indiana. He is executive director of the Spoken Word Stage at the 4th Street Festival and co-producer of the Writers Guild Spoken Word Series and the Urban Deer experimental music series. He has published 10 books including Fragile Batteries (The Grind Stone, 2023), Pity for Sale (Gasconade Press, 2022), Homunculus (Dos Madres Press, 2019), and Hot Type Cold Read (Chatter House Press, 2013). Tony has been offering Poetry On Demand at coffeehouses, museums, cemeteries, churches, bars, and art and music festivals for over a decade, and he is a frequent collaborator with experimental music & field recording ensemble ORTET.