The carcass is a meadow.
Love slugs and crows,
Maggots and an incessant humming.
Tourniquets are made with these materials
And asphalt, teeth, metal sculpture.
A two-edged key opens the jaws to brain beetles,
Broken egg shells and larvae.
Study the fractures. Study the sockets.
Study the break between fur and skin.
There are seeds here, too, and the beginning
Of dirt, worms, and snails, a web,
The fierce howls of flies unable to leave
Well enough alone and another spider
Welcoming them to its home.
| Copyright © 2019 by Michael H. Brownstein Michael H. Brownstein’s latest volume of poetry, A Slipknot Into Somewhere Else, was published by Cholla Needles Press in 2018. |
Michael H. Brownstein’s poem reminds me of Alfred Lord Tennyson’s line, “Nature, red in tooth and claw,” and of Thomas Hobbes’ characterization of life in the state of nature as "nasty, brutish and short." Michael seems to have changed Tennyson & Hobbes' perspectives to that of a microscope.
ReplyDeleteToo deep for me. Strange as it may seem, this was written when I began work on a wooden platform that created an above ground path around a large interesting and very messy with nature backyard.
ReplyDeleteHa! Well, leave it to us idlers in armchairs to speculate and make up stuff. But your invention made ours possible, and we are grateful! Thanks, Michael.
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