AUSTIN BROOKNER- POEMS

Austin Brookner has published fiction and poetry in several literary journals.  As a musician he has recorded with Nick Tosches, Marc Ribot, Tony Garnier, and Lenny Kaye.  He was born in New York City and lives in Austin, Texas.

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                                          Blue Eyes Shut


I can remember waking in the morning
To her still asleep, naked underneath the sheets
My eyes tracking where the crevice in her
Chest led to her concealed, sizable bosom
And then towards her face, where there
Shone the suggested light of morning
And thinking to myself that I had
Caught an angel, and that I was the luckiest
Person in the world, and that
Everything that had gone wrong
Had actually gone right because it had led
To her being in my bed for me
To hold and to cherish.
What were the odds that this creature
From across the world would land up
In this part of the country, in my home, I thought.
And how quickly and strangely these
Mornings of bliss and angels turned
To repulsion and suffocation
To where her mere sight and sound pushed me
To swipe her out of my life with
A machete not literally.
And now with the promise of new love unfulfilled,
I miss her
And wish that I could wake up one more morning
To the sight of her blue eyes shut.
 
 
 
                               Aching
 

If you set out on the path of most resistance,
Better get used to endless heartache.
You’ll need that,
It’ll put the smile in your chest
When you hear the word ‘Yes’.
 
They say the past,
It’s a very bad place
To go.
I think back
And I’m embarrassed.
Sometimes you just gotta forgive yourself,
For everything.
It’s not easy to do.
I think it just takes time.
 
 
 
 
           The Most Beautiful Boy in Liberty Hill


I was a beautiful young boy
Now I’m an ugly old man
I look in the mirror and think to myself
I’m melting
 
I had beautiful long blonde hair in my youth
And I was born at the right time
In the 60s and 70s it was a good time to be
A strange beautiful boy
 
I had more pussy than I knew what to do with
I fathered two children that I know of
And probably more that I do not know of
 
My mother loved me
I was her only child
She showered me with love
 
I never knew my father
I met him only when I was a small child
He left when I was three and I’ve never seen him since
If I try to picture him now I cannot
 
Yes, I got laid more often than I can remember
But I do not get laid anymore
I cannot even remember the last time
Its’ been years, decades most likely
 
I am content to live out my days here until my death
My mother is still alive but I never see her
I get my check for eight hundred dollars every month from the government
Which is more than enough to cover my expenses
 
I do not know happiness, but I am very content
And every once in a while, I can catch the faintest whiff of one of those hippie chicks
Who thought that I was the most beautiful boy in Liberty Hill
 
All work copyright © by Austin Brookner
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