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    Our Poison Horse
    Our Poison Horse
    Our Poison Horse
    Ebook148 pages1 hour

    Our Poison Horse

    By Derrick Brown

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    About this ebook

    Our Poison Horse is the newest poetry collection released by Derrick C. Brown. Brown is the winner of the Texas Book of The Year Prize, 2013. The New York Times calls his work a "...rekindling of the faith in the shocking, weird and beautiful power of words." Brown finally sold the ship, The Sea Section, upon which he lived for years in the Long Beach harbor, after which he took to hunting for a city that was affordable and had a bustling writer's community. He landed in Austin, Texas and when the progress of that town got to be intense, he moved to the nearby countryside in Elgin, Texas, and from that pastoral setting came unfurling this new collection of his most personal work to date.

    Brown has been known as one of the most touring, well travelled living poets in America. He has based his whole writing career on changing peoples minds about poetry and he feels a quality, unforgettable live experience can achieve that.

    Brown told himself he needed a 10-year hiatus from writing poetry when he felt the well of creativity had dried up. 2 years ago, he wrote a one-hour long 'poetic play' called Strange Light, commissioned by The Noord Nederlands Dans Group in Holland. The piece was performed by 14 dancers and accompanied by a live orchestra using music composed by fellow Americans, Emily Wells and Timmy Straw. While he was working on a new libretto for Wayne State University in Detroit, he was set up in a seemingly pastoral country setting, where, as Brown says, "an incredible war broke out inside and out, such bright, massive storms, snakes, guns, howling wind, hard sun: all kinds of poems gushed forth. I gave in to the process and my best work to date was born, this will be my 5th book."

    Our Poison Horse touches on more autobiography than the romantic and fantastical that was so present in his past work. In Derrick Brown's words:

    "I found a poetry in the real events that shaped or broke me. Every morning, I would quiet down, stare out into the field where we were watching our neighbors horse, a horse that was poisoned with pesticide by some local boys, a horse with massive scars all down its body from it's skin peeling from the poison sprayed upon it maliciously by some bastard kids. I watched the horse heal and finally come to me, and trust me and eat carrots. Something about that horse, Lacey, about it not trusting me and then warming up pulled something out of me that I didn't know I was ready for. There is a theme that in beautiful places, you will
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWrite Bloody Publishing
    Release dateOct 1, 2014
    ISBN9781949342185
    Our Poison Horse
    Author

    Derrick Brown

    DERRICK c. BROWN is the winner of the 2013 Texas Book of The Year award for Poetry. He is a former paratrooper for the 82nd airborne and is the president of one of what Forbes and Filter Magazine call "...one of the best independent presses in the country", Write Bloody Publishing. He is the author of four books of poetry

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      Book preview

      Our Poison Horse - Derrick Brown

      HORSE

      OUR POISON HORSE

      TO HOLLER AMONG THE LIVING

      THE STARGAZER IS DYING

      GRACKLES IN WAR LIGHT

      THE RUINED LIFE

      300 BONES

      AND THE SHAVING CREAM GOES EVERYWHERE

      SWALLOW THE HOUSE

      TEXAS ON A SATURDAY NIGHT

      ELEGANCE

      JOHNNY CASH AND THE SAD TROMBONE

      YOU GOTTA MEAN BUSINESS

      ALL HAIL THE KINDNESS OF STRANGERS

      BAR HOP WRITING EXERCISE GONE WRONG

      GIRL PIZZA AT BACKSPACE IN AUSTIN

      THE POET VS. TOO MANY DRINK TICKETS

      SOUR MASH

      LIBERATION BLUES

      FAVORITE ROLLER DERBY NAMES I MADE UP IN PORTLAND AT CLAUDIAS BAR WHILE ON TOUR; UNCLAIMED SO FAR

      ANOTHER PROBLEM WITH POETRY

      THE YAWNER IN THE BACK OF THE VENUE, ROLLED EYES, THE EDUCATED SMILE, THE NUDGED RIBS, THE SENTIMENTALITY; SENTIMENTALITÉ AND MELODRAMA PUSS, LENDER OF LEFT HOOK, A SOFTNESS; ZACHTHEID! AND OUR WILLINGNESS TO BE SUCKERED

      SHORT POEMS REJECTED BY HIGHLIGHTS MAGAZINE

      THE WANDERING HOW

      MENDER/DESTROYER

      POEM FOR WEEDS TAVERN, CHICAGO

      MR. MARKS

      NICE PAINKILLERS, STAY HAUNTED

      SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN

      MISPLACED COMPLIMENTS

      DARKNESS, EARLY TO THE PARTY

      TONGUE ON THE WALL

      THEY LOVED YOU, BUT YOU TELEGRAPHED TOO MUCH

      CAKE WEEK

      YOU WILL BE DESTROYED IN YOUR OWN WAY

      FIELD MANUAL ON HOW TO USE THE LATRINE WHILE WEARING MOPP 4 CHEMICAL PROTECTIVE GEAR

      SEEING BLOOD IN THE OCEAN

      THE BEST NIGHT

      LOUISIANA VS. THE HAIR CLUB FOR MEN

      IT’S FINE

      TOODLE LOO

      WHY MATT TAKES OFF HIS SHIRT IN EVERY ART GALLERY

      WHAT WE LIVE WITHOUT

      NOT TO BE REPRODUCED

      A NIGHT OUT WITH JEFF KOONS

      SOME OF THE WILDFLOWERS

      EAT THIS SWEET CREAM, RUNT

      ROMANCE IS AN UNSUPERVISED GO-KART TRACK

      PLACES YOU SHOULD KISS SOMEONE IN CALIFORNIA

      PLACES YOU SHOULD NEVER KISS

      MULE BREAKER

      ODE TO MY VOYAGE ACCOMPLICE

      WHAT HAPPENED IN CHARLES DE GAULLE AIRPORT

      KING LUDWIG TO RICHARD WAGNER

      HEY KID

      LAVA

      OUR POISON HORSE

      ABOUT THE AUTHOR

      ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

      THE STARGAZER IS DYING

      And I’m telling you to live, to hang on.

      I’ll change the low water in your vase.

      We can jam you back into the ground.

      Spring is in approach.

      The squirrels are being photographed.

      There is a flood of sunlight coming,

      the rivers are rising for swimming.

      Why do you give such sweet smells

      before going?

      This color is all you get to do?

      You made the dead house wonder.

      You made this gaze bloom.

      We carried your beauty to others

      and said,

      Can you imagine seeing this in the wild?

      Can you imagine how beautiful

      it would be if it were still alive?

      GRACKLES IN WAR LIGHT

      I have never seen the light swallow

      the field like it did last night.

      I couldn’t leave the barn.

      Have you ever seen lightning dance that fast,

      so pissed and ready for death,

      the night goes all hard-on, strobing along,

      wanting to take some farmer down?

      I wished I could go into the clouds

      and watch from above: the descent

      of all the bright war light,

      imploding gods,

      angelic powder kegs alight,

      howitzers hammering down

      over this little

      yellow

      house.

      Soon, the storm holds and the Grackles

      perch on the barbed wire.

      The wind winds down

      in surrender.

      A battered black chair has landed in the field.

      I can’t help but think it is for me.

      If I sit upon it,

      will the winds rise?

      The great oak

      leans alone on the hill, staring down

      the field, full of bloodthirsty birds.

      How can there be so many vultures

      and still so many rabbits?

      One vulture lifts from the tree,

      wings as wide as Christ,

      and holds fast in the headwind, still

      and high, frozen in the air,

      head down,

      feathers rifling.

      Dressed up

      for the occult hazing, he goes nowhere.

      Just holds.

      Not hunting. Floating post-storm.

      Is this a break from the constant job

      of waiting,

      waiting for food,

      for blood and murder,

      for carcass and pickings?

      I swear he is having fun.

      Yes, the other vultures never understood him,

      watching their special brother with disdain

      as he does nothing in the low gale.

      How they wish he would stick to his role

      and wait for the lightning to take down a beast

      so they could fill their bellies and live a life

      of waiting for something awful

      to feel full.

      THE RUINED LIFE

      Your life is ruined

      when one lost person becomes a loved, low song

      and you stop searching

      for new music, convinced it will all sound the same.

      Your life is ruined

      when you won’t make her dinner

      because you hate dirty dishes

      more than you love her.

      Your life is ruined

      when you hoped the violence

      you saw in him

      would protect you from the world, and how sad that it did.

      Your life is ruined

      when someone makes you choose

      science or miracles

      without seeing how well they party.

      Your life is ruined

      when you realize too late that the magic it takes

      to change someone

      exhausts all your magic.

      Your life is ruined

      when all your friends tell you to get married

      because it makes buying a house easier,

      but you never see them ’cause it demands so much work.

      Your life is ruined

      when you begin to rebuild your home

      before the last bomb falls and the war

      is declared over.

      Your life is ruined

      when people holding hands

      while riding bikes

      just seems dangerous.

      300 BONES

      Roy Sullivan still holds the record

      for being struck by lightning 7 times over the span of 20 years

      and surviving. He left this earth by his own hand.

      The lightning could not take him down.

      I can imagine the first time it found him.

      Out in his pickup truck at night,

      remembering that a truck can diffuse lightning

      but

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