Heath Brougher


Blood and Pollen 
 
I
Americans stuck in the sigh of the snack 
—helmsman of the pill,
handmaiden of ever-blurry grain alcohol.
Bipedal  sleepy sheepies obliviously partake
in their daily Coprophagia and plastic thinking.
The dynamo of live wired life has been snuffed out 
and the people speak only when spat upon. 
I wish I could tell you they suffered 
from artificial insanity but, unfortunately,
it is beyond real and riddled with the desire 
to engage in hip dysplasia
and heart mummers as, fat and happy, 
they sit back, further housebreaking 
to the point of house-soiling—
the laziness drive deprived to the point of resorting 
to the use of litterboxes due to sheer proximity. 
 
 
II
It’s another day of blimps of gimps
partaking in the new american pastime.
A mourning of dead glories in the dusk. 
Failing the glimpsing of catching the heightenedment of enlightenment—
a magic that used to transfix the populous.
A new reality of jotter fodder and submissive urination has replaced.
 
[Karuna =
 
    (7)   Svein
            Vseen
   
    (8)  E Ighte
           Eghsitenen
 
   (9)  N  Iinen]
 
 
III
Hey bamboo blood-kid?—it’s really rice.
Everyone in the world has kennel cough
and spends their days within a wounded pillbox
of artificial sanity. The Gatorade keeps them weak.
They say it only hurts when they live. 



Don’t 

get with the program
or the pogrom. 



The Blessed Products

A rum i na tion .,.

A toppled tip jar
ing nerves of Phil
anthropists 
harmonic 
hell in a ha
nd basket rapist 
s t end to tie pe
ople up:;:

~~{terra preta—>
the black earth}~~

{Palo Baritone rusty moon}

Golden Great 
is the path to heave
nly climes—or is that he
ll <?> …I’ve heardtell 
the temp is hi
gher in the de
vil’s lai
r/hot
ter [whi
te hot heat!]
or so the stor
ed-away story 
goes on an
d on
{ex
treme} tremendous 
ly abs 
urd/simultan 
eously straight
{no chaser} forwarded 
farfarfarfarfar as a far 
m on the dark side of Jupiter.

and eons to go before I remember how to sleep
and eons to go before I develop a chronotype.



What I’m Not 
 
The whole world may be laughing at them--
but they’re not laughing at me. 

I am no american. 

I run with no herd.
have allegiance to no one but my Self. 

Yet they try to call me an american 
just because I happen to have been born 
at a particular place in the world? 
 
Once again Proximity reigns, 
along with the inherent axiomatic insanity of society itself. 



Invincibility Through Invisibility 

To live in a land of make believe 
where they don’t believe in me
is the greatest feat I will ever accomplish.  

Heath Brougher is the editor-in-chief of Concrete Mist Press as well as poetry editor for Into the Void, winner of the 2017 and 2018 Saboteur Awards for Best Magazine. He is a multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net Nominee and received Taj Mahal Review's 2018 Poet of the Year Award. After spending almost four years editing, he is ready to get back into the creative driver seat for a bit.

 
 

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