This week's Poet of the People is Brooklyn Brown.
Every year, two or three young poets meander into Cool Beans and adopt Mind Gravy Poetry as their home away from home. They are in love with poetry, but put off by the way they have been taught poetry; they believe the best poetry is from the heart - understandable and not obtuse.
Brooklyn is a bolt of light in a fearsome night and assures me that poetry is cradled in good young hands.
~Al Black
Twenty-year-old Brooklyn Brown is a student at U of SC and believes that art is activism. She practices this notion through her poetry. She hopes to be a voice for young people who are struggling with the ups and downs of early-adulthood while also confronting bigger world issues. A creative from a young age, Brooklyn often expresses the turmoil of her own adolescence in her writing. Brooklyn is inspired by the classic romantic and confessionary poets that came before her, and hopes to connect with her readers’ senses through concrete language and vivid imagery, believing that good poetry is not only understood, but felt.
Peeling Oranges
I split my finger
on a piece of paper
yesterday.
today,
you want oranges.
you enjoy the way
the pulp does glut
your shallow throat.
and if the consumption
should bring you pleasure,
I will peel and peel–
only stopping for a moment
inbetween, to wince
at the citrusy sting.
____
Question
I have a question—
for legislators who have
an obsession with oppression,
and teaching lessons
that put people in their proper places
assigned by the shapes
of the features on their face,
or the colors of
the skins
that they live in.
I have a question—
for the men in these positions
at the top of their systems,
I have question,
about my body,
about its most vital organ,
not my mitochondria heart,
but my ovaries, of course.
I think that they are art—
But, do their brush strokes
maim you?
because they paint a mirror image of
the same ones that
made you?
Is it self loathing or a hatred
for the woman who created the soul
that would grow to rule
the bones of a man so cruel
as you?
Is it because your mother put
her foot down
since your father was
never around?
Do you still feel the weight of
her on your little head
each night before bed
while you lay to rest
next to your wrinkling wife,
who you’d stab with a hunting knife
if the decision of that fatal incision
would not make you
look like a bad guy?
do you dream that
your work to earn
the respect of your daddy even
after he’s dead will pay
as well as the price of the
people you damned to hell,
because maybe,
in heaven you’ll throw a ball
back and forth and
and back and forth
with him?
and your miserable actions
will be worth
the poison of your politics,
because at least you remembered
to pray about it?
oh, and I have a question—
for the righteous and resolute;
if I don’t believe in the same god as you,
must I burn for the sins that
killed your savior?
must I adhere to the rules of a ruler
who I owe nothing to, just because
you say that’s what I should do?
are millions of us wrong just because
you will die on the hill
where you took a red pill
that told you you were right?
well, what if
my mother’s words
are my hymns,
and when I hear them
they give me breath
like my mind has grown a lung,
and I worship the earth—
because it is she
who is my creator,
I’ve been my own savior
since birth, and I crucified myself to stand
up straight and tall today?
Is it not good
enough for you,
that I am imprinted
on the opposite side
of your same copper penny?
Will you not rest
until I pass
your grueling test,
until you’re sure that
I’m a perfect copy
of your idealistic embossing?
I’m left deafened by your preaching
that drowns out children’s cries
who we could have helped
if you’d just be quiet, and listen
for one minute.
so my question is—
If you died today
would you die a martyr,
or a failure?
was your mission for goodness lost
under your hunger
to indoctrinate innocents?
Would Jesus be proud
of your mansion,
while hungry kids imagine
a fridge full of food
in a kitchen as big
as the one that your
god-honoring
family dines in tonight?
you make sure to lead
in saying grace,
but did you ignore
your teenage daughters’
pale face
as she stares
at her untouched dinner plate?
Do you thank god for the meal
that the help prepared,
and ask for blessings
before your son runs
to the bathroom, to hide
eyes full of acidic tears
because he fears to be
feminine, so feeling
feelings makes him scared?
I have a question—
for leaders who
don’t lead by example;
is it purpose or power,
that fuels you?
is it oath or ego?
that is my question.
____
Dreams
A river flowing through
my dreams,
taking pictures far
from me;
good and bad,
and in between–
they all float down
the angry stream;
until my mind is fresh
and clean,
and I wake up on my
sheets serene,
only dampened
by the feelings
that the erosion
left behind overtime.
I dreamt a dream
of better things,
and then I dreamt
I grew white wings
and flew too close
to a star, ‘till I burned
and turned
torched and charred.
Lard with color and
poignant plotlines,
I dream some dreams
of beautiful things–
that dense and darken
before I wake,
and then my memory
my dreams doth take.
____
TREPIDATION
The trepidation
of my twenties
is tilling over my
noisy nerves
which wont shut up
about my body,
or the boy
that i'm afraid
will get bored of it–
and I think when
I am an old lady
I’ll eat the pies
I bake instead
of giving them
away;
I’ll put extra cream
into my coffee cup;
I’ll write a book
for young people
to read;
I think I’ll smell
like nectarine–
and maybe I’ll learn
to play guitar and sing.
I think i’ll feed pigeons
by a fountain,
and climb
a big mountain;
just to say it’s
something I did;
I think I’ll mentor
a creative little kid.
I think I might frequent
local art galleries,
and be known by some
as “that quirky old lady”;
I think I’ll travel more,
with someone I adore–
I think I will make a lot
of soup out of peas,
that no one will like
to eat but me.
I think i’ll reach out to a friend
from high school
and spend more
of my summers
in a swimming pool;
I think i’ll wear
a cute swimsuit,
and ignore the way it fits
my herky-jerky divots.
I think I’ll start to pray;
not to god,
but to my mother, who
I wish could live forever
and always be there
to give me her best answers.
I think I’ll have children;
in the form of house cats–
and wear colorful
bucket hats.
I think I’ll care less
about what people
think, and I will finally love
all of my body;
because when I wrinkle
and begin to grey
I’ll thank my bones
for carrying me
every day–
even when my tattoos
begin to fade
I’ll still have stories
to tell the twenty-somethings,
as well
as secrets to take
to the grave;
and when I think
about my face
and how it might look,
in a few decades–
I smile at the picture
and wish that
I could hug her
she looks like me,
but softer;
she’s full of forgiveness
and laughter
she's a spitting image
of her golden mother,
she’s got paleing hazel
eyes like her father,
and the confidence
of her brother.
But I am her,
and she is me–
she is everything I can be
So I don’t have to wait
to heal my heart,
or create my art;
I think I just have to start.
