Michael Brandonisio


Pollination

After a Letter by Vincent van Gogh

This morning, after a white night, as the wind swirled every which way and crows circled overhead, I took a good long walk through a timeworn town I call home. Its streets, lined with trees gnarled against a bleached sky, never seemed to end. And further I went towards where the border of the town encounters the countryside. A ragged silhouette was I perceiving two figures in the near distance. One, with an easel, palette and brush, was painting a little old man with an accordion, playing one discordant chord after another. I went nearer and observed that the little old man, he was not an old man at all but simply a shape conjured from straw. Imagine that! And the discordant accordion? It was one more trick of the wind. I realized then that I was the painter depicting a mindscape within myself.

Uptown Dirt

Skywatching

Night of the Supermoon

Notes for an Imaginary Memoir

This is the dawn of individual time. The beginning. You are certain that you cannot stop your dawn in its tracks because you are not there physically, only in your post-natal conception, constantly seeking out escape routes.

This is where the dream began, when darkness ended. An interchange takes place. The soundtrack consists of footfalls backtracking over gravel.

This is a city in which you were not conceived nor born, a sprawling city with giant buildings. You did not know this city existed until you arrived, a foreign presence.

This psychosexual burial ground is laden with virgin snow. It looks beautiful from afar, a peaceful resting place, leading to moods infused with springtime blossoms, summer idylls, autumn foliage, and isolation.

This aftertaste of your interactions, each recalled as a small souvenir discarded in forgotten rooms, left you hungry. Restless, you wanted more than what you bargained but what you needed was more than what was on offer.

This is a dirge strummed on a nylon-string guitar in a late-night haunt. You depart before the break of light, before drunken sailors have one last round. And you wish you were another.

This is the poem unearthed, where your blood in all its beauty was shed.

Poet, photographer and visual artist Michael Brandonisio's work has previously appeared in Otoliths and elsewhere.
 
 
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