by: Michael Brownstein
These two short poems by Michael Brownstein conjure the muses (the “Mousai”) to help sing of the hypnagogic state where image and language converge, where logic dips into the surreal and poetry opens us to the ways in which we “become a part of the stanza for all things.”
THE STUDIO OF HATHOR AND THE MOUSAI
Through the window the group of belonging matters.
Please. Do not knock on the door. Do not knock on the glass pane. Do not stare at the entrance to the guitar.
When she wakes, she will open everything.
Then step through the two cars, enter through them into the house of hills, blue stems and violets.
Words do not answer all things, syllable shapes are the substance of wallpaper.
The line you will become a part of is the stanza for all things.
ON THE BEACH, THE SUN AND MOON OCCUPIED THE SAME SKY
Pin striped moon,
eastern star
dog eared and canvas,
then a flurry of clouds,
then a backcloth
of moods.
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 including The 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), I Was a Teacher Once (Ten Page Press, 2011), Firestorm: A Rendering of Torah (Camel Saloon Press, 2012), and The Katy Trail, Mid-Missouri, 100F Outside And Other Poems (Kind of Hurricane Press, 2013).He is the editor of First Poems from Viet Nam (2011).
