Heath Brougher - Poems

Heath Brougher is the poetry editor of Five 2 One Magazine. He has published two pamphlets with Green Panda Pres. When not writing or editing he helps with the charity Paws Soup Kitchen which gives out free dog/cat food to low income families with pets. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Yellow Chair Review, Chiron Review, SLAB, Main Street Rag, Diverse Voices Quarterly, Riprap, Crack the Spine, Gold Dust, Of/with, Third Wednesday, eFiction India, and elsewhere.

                         Come of Age 
 
Listening to the old failing songs
of younger days, of late-adolescence.
Waiting for my fate among the butterflies, school bells
ringing in the distance up the hill and it all
begins again. Endless high school prevails
and pulses outward into my present thoughts,
to the jugular of the world,
its infectious, contagious criticism.
Turning red in the face,
heart and nerves fluttering inside,
looking down at my hands,
picking my fingernails and knuckles.
This was my daily routine.
An endless humiliation
I have yet to conquer.
I still feel the pangs,
I still have the dreams,
I still feel the weight of that teenage injective.
I am tied to time. I am still suffering through this generation.
I am stuck in the niche of recurring suburban humiliation,
constant reminders of this epoch, this Day and Age,
to suffer through this mangled and toxic generation.
I have and will continue to suffer the generation itself.
 
 
                   Just Thinking 
 
I was just thinking about the possibility
of a Pantheistic Universe
 
the Earth itself is a Pantheistic planet
 
a many-Goded planet,
for instance—the sun, the ocean, the air, the gravity 
as the pressure ripens
and our latent fuss begins knocking at our hearts and minds,
ready to burst, to spill forth
its intellectual ejaculate upon the Earth
 
pitch-black curtains draped like eyelids
over all the populations that never activated their Intellects.


           Not an Ode to November
 
Feeling dangerous, as in
I feel danger at every corner.
Fear creeps down every one
of my thoughts. I can’t take
this swishing world of 17 different
shades of green towels.
 
I usually just barely
make it out of each Winter
alive and if I am this far
down and it’s only November,
I don’t think
I’m going to make it through
this one. All the leaves are gone,
and with them, so is my Spirit.
My inspiration has retreated
so much so that I
am already done
writing this
poem.
 
                    Hollow-Headed 

The fact that most people
in this world do not do their own thinking
can be proven thusly:
 
people are always saying that doing
the same thing over and over again
and expecting a different result
is the definition of Insanity--
only one problem—that’s NOT the definition
of Insanity. Doing the same thing over and over again
and expecting a different result is actually the definition
of Stupidity, the word which defines the very people who speak
this thoughtless cliché.  
 
 
                  Pyromaniac Orchids  
 
An ice-coated shard of wintry berry
pierces my tongue. I drape
the black cloth over the stains, faintly
swallowing remorse and dining on sorrow.
The aromatic blankness stifles hopes
from ever gloating in the paste
of fierce orchids sifting through the fiery  
embers of a hazel sun. Drear returns
to feast until a flammable emotion distills
and blazes in the brief freedom of a candle’s short wick.
Wax glorifies itself and smothers the flame
as the crackle of liquid flower beats against the eardrums.