Brian Hill

 

 

 

Brian Hill can see three palm trees, a church, and the turquoise blue San Francisco Bay from his Berkeley apartment. He edits Sour Grapes Online Literary Magazine (http://www.ccnet.com/~bhill/created/) and has appeared in print in various places, but not enough to make you envious. He likes chess and will travel to another planet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poem to the Merger

 

the bird is eaten by the shark

something terrible approaches

amid a screen of pawns

bend my purposes

make me smile my own death smile

you strain under your grimace

the smile breaks you

the chum line is in the water

and the shark

I leave you two now

to get acquainted

 

 

NOT APPROVED BY JIMINY CRICKET

 

1.

When you wish upon a star

Makes no difference who you are;

As long as you're a straight white male your dreams come true

2.

When you wish upon a star

Your wish will not get too far;

I have blocked your wishes with a magic spell

3.

When I wish upon a star

makes no difference who you are;

Everything I wish for is for me, not you

4.

When you wish upon a star

I will hit you with my car;

I would wish for steel legs if I were you

 

(Untitled)

and who will help them

and who will kill them

when they are to be killed

and who will make the mud for them

to drag their bedding through

who will make something to look at

for the old woman

watching with one eye

as she lies on the stones

the lid blown

into her palm

 

 

 

 

(Untitled)

 

some of those things are dead

they are not dead but they are dead to me for now

they finally dug the panthers out you know

nailed them in an apartment

in oakland

there is rain and I walked

grieving the loss of my girl

you will not remember what she did to me

and I remembered and I sang things

something from Pound

the monkeys make sorrowful noise

but these days I am just whistling in the elevator

whistling

in the elevator

 

 

 

 

 

 

a poem to the president's girlfriend

the meaning of Calvin Klein

is so far removed from underwear on the naked man

of san francisco bus

the meaning of poems

so far removed

from words

each abstract

sells an image,

feelings

about ourselves in the world

one is tested on millions

and is known to effect them

and few make any money at the other

what I remember from when I was a young poet

was a woman who made a mask of sticks

and got down on the floor

and hypnotized us

and someone's ass

going up a narrow stairwell

a painting of squares

and that is all

since then I have not gone underground exactly

but i have gone lower case

now the best we can hope for

is that we lay about each others' apartments

in our Calvin Kleins

having sex,

and forever young

otherwise it's just you,

and yesterday's lottery ticket

 

 

 

 

Brian Hill