Sins, a poem

 Sins

The sins of my father are not my sins
but sins none the less. I
Forget them only to repeat them,
hide them from my children to see them
sin in turn. What  apathy 
can save me? What blind eye can I turn?

The hubris of tyrants makes each fall
in turn, but first we raise them up.
On the shields of the army,
we raise them, on the shoulders of
the workers. Yes, and on the backs
and hungry blood of each of us.

I can not lose myself here, drown
tomorrow in hypnotic seas;
each wave returns me to my shores,
insistent sand, a border to all
that seems real. Perhaps it is.
Perhaps our sins lie over there.

Stephen Brooke ©2025

Haze, a poem

Haze

The soldiers of that summer
did not sing. They had
the radio. They had Hendrix
sending them into
their haze, the haze of a war
that none saw beyond. We watched
them go. We named them to
forget them. Which ones did not
come back? Those, too, had names.
Do you remember them?

Stephen Brooke ©2025

Beach, a poem

Beach

Ninth Avenue, maybe, or Eighth — 
that doesn’t much matter. The Gulf
lies at the palm-shadowed end,
the hours giving way,
the day giving way,
the beach becoming the world
and the world, the beach.
Blinded, we laugh, walking
the startled sand, one compass
as good as another, salt
to left or right and, then,
the other way around.
Shall we swim? Later.

Stephen Brooke ©2025

Dot-Com

I'm not sure if there was any point to it but I renewed the eggshellboats.com domain for another three years. It has pointed only to this blog for some time and I may never use it for anything else (though the name was originally conceived as the title of a magazine). Three years won't cost that much and who knows whether I'll still be around then? 

Understand, a poem

Understand

To understand the novel
one should read, as well,
his poems. The words are there,
those very same words, leaping

over each other on their
varied ways. Some come
when called. Some will run
from the extended hand, knowing

not what we conceal.
Look, it is empty.
Look, I innocent come
to roll these pebbles between

blind fingers, to know what canticles
formed the day. A poet?
I know only the novels,
reciting in the dusk.

Stephen Brooke ©2025

I had a specific writer in mind when I composed this, but that doesn't matter. 

Fire, Fire, a poem

Fire, Fire

Fire and fog — what morning is this,
wandering the roads? What day?
Too young for a name. Too distant, singing
words it can not understand.

Mist and music — what birds huddle
behind the dawn, shiver gray
and silent? Learn these. Forget them along
winding chiaroscuro puzzles.

Fire, fire. Call the sun
to me. It can give my name,
hidden just beyond a hazed
horizon. I hear its song at last.

Stephen Brooke ©2025

I Write

 I write not so others may understand me but so I may understand myself.