Poems by Brandon Shane

Lighting Angels  

When I was six 

I stuck my finger into a cocoon 

and felt the soft walls of a caterpillar, 

what would be 

the wings of a butterfly 

plucked between my nails. 

I think about this butterfly decades later, 

especially when people see 

their death relatives or lovers come to them 

in a butterfly landing on the shoulder, 

the instant tears, 

telephone to the other side, 

and someone was without that butterfly. 

It was around this time my father died, 

a few months before his powerful heart 

was wasted on lung cancer, 

I wonder sometimes, maybe it was him. 

I have wondered about the caterpillar 

sacrificing itself, in light of wasps laying eggs 

into their soft white belly 

and devouring the metamorphosis, 

Saturn chomping the organs 

formed by his genes, 

if my finger felt like the jaws of an insect, 

or a mutated beast they fear 

and do not know why, like 

migration in the blood of birds. 

I am the fire that has informed 

this caterpillar of hell, and I know 

at my time of judgment, God 

will look upon me, 

and the butterfly will be there, 

he will ask why 

and I will say, 

I always thought butterflies 

were too pretty. 

I looked at my finger 

until midnight. 

---

Dummy

It’s sometime in the future, 

and I imagine leaflets

will fly like white and black 

birds across the sky. 

I will listen to my students 

talk about their older siblings 

drafted to fight 

in the world war. 

And it was long before, where 

I joked with a friend that 

we were outside the range 

to be sent overseas. 

I will listen to the old women 

silently stare out their windows, 

feel the guilt of the old men 

who have begun to cry.

And then, they were not leaflets. 

They were something like forever. 

I heard the trumpets in the sky. 

I was so naive. I was so naive. 

---

Hidden Corridors 

I have noticed at night,  

the nurses headed to their shifts,  

the equilibrist racoons at war with a fat possum,  

hearing graveyard neighbors  

open and close their dusty doors,  

strangers that wander the street  

with all the time and right as I.  

I have seen those responsible  

for fireworks and broken glass,  

the owls emerging  

and terrorizing the mice,  

but in particular the beatniks  

who smoke their cigarettes and drink their alcohol, 

sometimes with a book in their hand,  

flashing their brilliance with a muttered expletive  

a labored return to their outlawed poet or novelist,  

maybe their own art  

struggling with a verse or unpacking a memory;  

they are writing  

and I am writing about them.  

There are corridors that run through all of us  

each of us residing behind the flat metallic door  

to the left and right,  

dim subterranean light,  

and independently they have started to glance at me  

and I continue to look at them,   

scribble down words,  

before the sun rises  

we share a quick nod,  

not a dying species 

but one content on being unfound.  

---

Star Spots 

At three in the morning, ladies dance on the street. 

It is cold as all the hours in winter at once, but no-one cares. 

I look at the train tracks, the world moves while it does not, 

and hundreds of people are around me now, they could 

hear me yell. I could ruin all of their days 

be included in all of their stories 

fuel hatred of the human race, 

but I will soon sleep as they are sleeping, 

we are a fractal cocoon from above.  

The ladies are loud, but their happiness is a fire 

and I smile uncontrollably at the thought 

that this is something they will long remember 

as the time they had it, as the time they had it won, 

with no need for dream catchers, 

having pushed the bills and sicknesses 

beyond the horizon. 

I am entirely motionless, sad and alone. 

---

Outhouse Bum

I listened to a man tell me about the universe, 

chipping off each secret one by one, lips ballroom red, 

eyes like the dark pit of a jade broken in half, 

and he smoothly dispelled the great scientists 

of our century and those long ago, 

without their education, accomplishments, complication, 

all the things he was without. 

I heard his words 

like the deep brewing of cicadas underground, 

stirred into the sugary water of language, 

and I ran away, but later found him digging out an alley, 

he was still beautiful, but was now poor,  

I wanted to take his hand, knowing it would take a week 

for him to own all my things. 

I could hardly hear the cars outside, 

and the rain was pouring, him watching a documentary 

on the Soviet Union, some taxi cabs and smoke room instruments, 

and the air was rife with coffee, even though it was eight at night, 

he was mumbling about how we almost had it, 

I, trying to hide his pills, each one white and light as cotton, 

a flock of birds seen from under a tree, 

summer living again in a sunflower, 

I wanted to cradle him in my arms, 

read him a tender psalm 

I had lost faith in.

Brandon Shane is a poet and horticulturist, born in Yokosuka, Japan. You can see his work in trampset, The Chiron Review, IceFloe Press, Variant Lit,The Argyle Literary Magazine, Sontag Mag, Acropolis Journal, Grim & Gilded, Ink in Thirds, Dark Winter Lit, among others. He graduated from Cal State Long Beach with a degree in English.