Two Poems by Michael H. Brownstein

A DORMITORY TOO MANY WISH TO ENTER

 

In the dormitory of perfect birds there lives a passion for perfect violence

 

and you go into old age with all of your lies,
reminiscing by the telling of these lies
until every lie you know
is a lie you own
alone.

  

But everything is OK—

I will leave this place and let my life live out somewhere else.

 

 

 

 

A PHILOSOPHY ON DYING

 

On the way home this evening, I died.

It’s rather interesting, this dying.

Color fades into dyes

And a two and a four appear on the die

 

Nothing makes sense for a moment, dying,

Dyes, the roll of the die

 

But here it is, you’re dead, so you died

 

 

 

 

Michael H. Brownstein has been widely published throughout the small and literary presses. His work has appeared in The Café Review, American Letters and Commentary, Skidrow Penthouse, Xavier Review, Hotel Amerika, Free Lunch, Meridian Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, The Pacific Review, Poetrysuperhighway.com and others. In addition, he has nine poetry chapbooks includingThe Shooting Gallery (Samidat Press, 1987), Poems from the Body Bag (Ommation Press, 1988), A Period of Trees (Snark Press, 2004), What Stone Is (Fractal Edge Press, 2005), and I Was a Teacher Once (Ten Page Press, 2011). He is the editor of First Poems from Viet Nam (2011).