BRENDON BOOTH-JONES - POEMS

Brendon Booth-Jones is the co-editor of Writer’s Block Magazine in Amsterdam. Brendon’s photographs, poems and prose have appeared in the Peeking Cat Anthology 2018, Anti-Heroin Chic, Amaryllis, Botsotso, Neologism, Odd Magazine, Verdancies, Zigzag and elsewhere. Follow Brendon on Facebook @brendonboothjoneswriter.

​Toothbrush

At the bottom of my old dank toiletry bag
I found your blue toothbrush,
crusted with greyish,
vaguely minty-smelling toothpaste,
and with a thick black pubic hair--
like a quiet bolt of black lightning--
caught in the worn and splayed bristles.

First I felt an old pain heave and roll
inside me like a dead tree in a river,
and then I felt a stale hate
brushed suddenly Colgate-fresh,
that all those months of scrubbing
had apparently not erased,
but merely washed down
to the blotched and forgotten
toiletry-bag-bottom of memory.

And for one sharp minute you were here again,
with the bed sheet creases
imprinted on your morning face,
your faint smell of nameless flowers,
and a frothy white grin as you brushed your teeth
and told me of your day’s goals,
stacked precariously with ambition.

But then the fridge hiccupped; the image shattered
as easily as an iPhone screen;
the silence closed round me again like mist;
and I flung that poison arrow straight in the trash.

But we all know plastic lasts forever

​

​I Don’t Give a Fuck about Bach

I had just finished unpacking the last of my stuff
and decided to put on some celebratory Bach--
Italian Concerto in F Major--
and let the mesmeric stream of lucid music
wash over me for a minute.

When I opened my eyes I saw the bottle
of Jack Daniels on the bookshelf
alongside the minor poets,
and decided to have a swig to celebrate the new apartment
and soften the sharp echoes of the empty walls.

I took a big gulp and only then,
as the unexpectedly sweet fire touched my tongue
and throat and belly,

did I notice the two fat dead flies
drifting near the bottom of the bottle
like dead planets drowned in amber poison

or like a colon preceding the thought: pay more attention

and then I heard a knock,

and my new neighbor, burly and blonde,
all jaw, pectoral and faux-tribal tattoo--

like a muscle-wrapped package of masculine insecurity
delivered to my door—with chlorine blue eyes,
told me, Turn that shit off I’m trying to sleep.

What, that music? I croaked,
throat suddenly dry as a week-old McNugget,
But that’s Bach!

And he blinked once, as if I’d addressed him in Swahili,
and then he pointed a finger the colour
of uncooked sausage at my face and said,
I don’t give a fuck about buck.

​

Daisy
​

18 and cooking space cakes in the waffle maker
in Daisy’s garage on Saturday nights,
                        feeling like suburban teenage soothsayers.
Grooving to Hendrix and raging to Cobain,
            then laying back,
                                          the space between
                                                          each thought
                                                                      stretching out
                                                                                      like melting toffee
      
                                                and looking through
                  the dust-addicted cobwebs,
                                          ragged and abandoned
            in the rafters
                    to the luminous,
                            smiling future
that was pinned
          like a pink satin rose to the breast of the world.
                 
But I grew up and fled that two-stroke town,
lost touch with that boy and that vision
of a world without injustice.
                          And now I wonder, where is Daisy?

I asked around, tried to find a contact number
                  or Facebook account.
But all I found was another memory, emerging
                              from that long-ago cloud of purple haze
                                              like a messenger pigeon, small and precise,
            of his voice saying, 
                                 Since my mom died
                                            I feel nothing, man. . .

                            And I was too busy
                                      reaching for the bright lights
                                                                  behind my eyes
                                                                              to see his hands shaking.

​

Autumn in Amsterdam
                       --For M.
​

​PHOTO TAKEN BY THE AUTHOR

Lithe-limbed, heavy-lidded,
we lie drowsing in the park at dusk.
Your feet curl up behind you
and to the sole of one shoe is stuck
a grey plug of chewing-gum
jeweled with a crumb of glass,
dust and hair,
as if the world was trying
to tie you down,
to stop you floating away
into the dolphin-blue late-September air
from this lush carpet of grass that deepens
the green of your eyes.
I kiss each island
in the atoll of freckles on your arm.

Autumn is laden with wasted days.
Another summer of mistakes is scattered
in the spindrift of golden leaves.
The evening air is perfumed with dew
and distant church bells;
this scene will soon be drained of colour
so come closer
and let’s push the end of the poem back
a little further.

​