BRAD SHURMANTINE - POEMS

Brad Shurmantine lives in Napa, Ca. He spends time writing, reading, tending three gardens (sand, water, vegetable), keeping bees, taking care of chickens and cats, and working on that husband thing. His fiction and personal essays have appeared in Pettigru Review, Potato Soup Journal, Every Day Fiction, Avalon Literary Review, Adelaide Magazine, and Nightingale & Sparrow. His poetry has been published in Oddball Magazine, Jam and Sand, Ariel Chart, and Mom Egg. He backpacks in the Sierras and travels when he can, and has a serious passion for George Eliot. 

99th Percentile
​

​It’s true I was the best reader
in class, the one the nuns
always called on 
when they wanted
to crank through a text.
That skill alone 
made the whole school thing
joyful, propelled my stunning success
on standardized tests.
I loved those damn tests:
the serious pageantry of passing out
fresh pencils, breaking the cellophane,
smelling the fresh cool booklets.
Time Start/Time Stop.
The questions that had real answers.
I was good at that shit, really good,
99th percentile good. 
Getting those scores each year
confirmed who I knew I was:
smarter, better than everyone else,
everyone.  I walked among my classmates
like a young prince, could not
seriously share their vague pleasures,
take much interest in their pedestrian
achievements, a one-child parade
down a blind alley.  Of course,
none of those kids liked me.
I thought it was envy, but they
just didn’t like me.  Smart kids.
 
         
 

Favorite Parent
​

​If there’s such a thing
I’m not it, not ever.
It’s fair, it’s right:
she’s so much out there,
available, connecting, 
reacting, present.  
And I’m so often
stuck in a man-cave,
glued to my screen: 
those tiresome 
judgements, accusations.
I watch them too,
watch over them.
I love them, sure, 
I provided--
would die for them,
goes without saying.
But who is always there,
right there, hanging
on every word--
lavishing praise,
encouragement--
who thinks of them always,
not just in waves
of memory, waves
of wonder, waves of regret?
Favorite parent, that’s who.

I Was Right
​

​On my knees in moist dirt,
planting Hot Lips salvia,
I once again conclude
I was right about this
or that struggle, years ago,
in this or that school,
battles I always lost.
The bees will love these little
firecracker flowers so close
to home; they’ll soften
and enliven the gray rocks,
the white granite bowl
and ishidoro I will settle
amongst them.  I’m breaking
a lot of rules, building
my tsukubai, it’s what I do:
for starters, no teahouse.
Maybe even causing trouble
for my bees, inviting robbers,
but it feels right to me--
in my mind I hear
the steady stream falling
into the small pool, gently
roiling the clear water,
lightly splashing the nearby 
foliage. I imagine all those
colleagues who prevailed,
moving through their days,
secure in what they do,
those hot issues
that caused me such pain
settled and forgotten.

New Voices
​

​We are
especially interested
in hearing new voices:
gay, black, multiracial,
transgender, female, queer,
overlooked, ignored,
trampled down by patriarchal
boots, dismissed
through time.
We listen
for those voices.
 
I too want to hear new voices,
and every time a poem or story
wiggles free inside me
I think I hear something
fresh and new,
but it’s just the old white voice
I can’t shake, my voice,
the one that’s bounced around
inside the walls of my head
forever,
or since I can remember.
That voice, that Brad voice,
continually whispering
you’re something special, 
you’re no good.
That angry voice, that funny voice.
This voice.
 
I can’t blame you
for tuning it out.
Often I wish
I could.
But I’m stuck with it.
Now I keep talking to you
and you keep not hearing,
or, worse, hearing it
as so much boring static,
routine and predictable, 
not worth a reader’s time.
And I get it: this is exactly how
the ones you’re listening for
have always felt.
Ignored.
Now I get to feel it.
Serves you right.
I can’t say you’re wrong.
 
Only, I hear the dog
crunching her morning kibbles,
lapping up water
with her big friendly tongue,
out in the hallway,
and I think my voice
can’t be worse than that.
God loves the sound
of a dog eating.
God loves my voice too.
 

Bubbles & Bass
​

​Not cast out, not even
sent away, left
on my own but each step
looking backward,
not seeing where
I was going,
not caring.
Everything beautiful
was back there.
Now I look back
further and further
for that beauty.
Don’t tell me
I’m young at heart.
That’s stupid shit.
Means nothing.
Tall and slim
with long brown hair
bound up in scarves,
lovely breasts barely contained
in silken cups,
you dance right beside me,
not even seeing me,
however I try
to catch your eye.
You know
in your precious heart 
youth is everything.