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CONTROL OF THE MUSIC
So much on your plate
No love in vain
But then I dwell on it
Things change
It's come after me, you
Then "THAT'S ALL FOLKS!"
The best emotional mess of me space
now
Hard to open up again
Handling instructions
Some people never do
Where it touches itself
Embarrassed by human tears
Still here at a playful distance
GARNET DEGREES
Disgorged palm trees
drink Tijuana leather
juice cross tiger lily frets
of set tequila gradients
Slap all out - your name here
tweaked & tender again
adopt-a-wreck
enter wrong way
Happy to walk the tracks
just like a telecaster
in her own little burb
she faxes so lightly
from DOUBLE SOUTHERN REGISTER
or is it
The Southern Lyre
Who is burning the churches? Make them stop!
After weaving our way through the new upscale Charlotte-city limits suburban scrawl out Rae Road through her country memory, my mom and I persuade the cop protecting the vacated scene to let us past the yellow and black plastic ribbons to see the smoldered mess not much left - blackened beams, jambs kicked in by anonymous torch, red clay wet from last night's useless hoses- a little house with vacant front porch right across the street - I imagine the fear and
went home and wrote this poem:
A Call for
Vertical Integration in the Eye of the Storm
Purple & blue tiffany combo in
Church of my childhood struggle of perfect
Public meat longing again vine-covered
Power flower conflict hunger for green
Struggle if that is sin then separation
Grace abounds even more than bonds-
Doubt boundaries not programmable
Stretched grace strikes us down-
Social eels demand ransom, children
Do not bow your heads tranquility of hymns
Is shattered & addressed two days ago I
Saw the Black Ash of a Church Burned on its
Sure Foundation Century old pin oaks scorched
Against stones of those who can't leave this sight-
Who witnessed who drove away burning the sermon during
___________________________________
Charlotte,
I love you deeply
That's why I had to leave
I see your changes keyed up rapidly flashing past the new contra dance named the Independence Boulevard which is way convoluted like the traffic which is nothing compared to here up North from whence I sign this letter
Letter Out, Letter Back
Lee Ann Brown
Photo copyright © Laurie Leber, 1999
You can read Patrick Pritchett's review
of Lee Ann Brown's latest book of poems, Polyverse,
in this issue of Jacket magazine.
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