Brian Kenneth Swain

The object of life is to make sure you die a weird death.                                                   Thomas Pynchon   No lingering bedsore festering demise for me—not a chance. Something quick, probably violent, that will make the mortician really work for his money. Something so bizarre, so outrageous that it will get me on the evening news. People will talk about it with their friends for days, shake their heads ruefully.   “Can you believe it?” they’ll say. “One minute he was there. The next minute Who even knew such a thing was possible?”   They’ll need to come up with a whole new warning label just to protect others against whatever stupid thing I did. It will be the sort of ...

Today is like all the others, gray like a barren winter sea, the sun a pale and heartless orb. And it’s on days like this, that I feel certain my journey is nearing its end.   Only now I see, as I look out to the distant horizon, a whirlwind of outlandish color, trick of the light perhaps, but no less real.   And in that moment I hear a note ring out, then another, and before long a melody that seems to reflect perfectly from off the colors.   And I feel my senses inundated, My fears dissipated like morning fog, an effect so complete that no space remains for those thoughts of a journey’s end or of some hopeless cruel travail.   I just stand and take it in, mesmerized in that unexpected instant, marveling at the ...

(a somewhat less than epic poem)   Captain Ordinary arrives, as if from out of nowhere, in those moments when something unusual seems about to happen.   He is not summoned by the glow of a signal in the sky, for that would be extraordinary, not his thing at all. Just a simple phone call or text message.   Nor does he swoop down from on high or fly in, defying the laws of physics. He arrives in a beige Prius with a small dent on the front right bumper and fast food wrappers crumpled in the backseat.   He does not crash through windows or knock down front doors. Captain Ordinary courteously rings the doorbell and waits there, humming the last tune from the radio, shifting his weight from one foot to the ...

With a brush of my hand I turn the light to darkness. And in that moment, as all the images fade to black, what remains are the bits and pieces my mind has saved up all day for just this moment. Pictures and stories that stumble about, keeping me awake. A panoply of visions and dreams that shun the light of day, but now dance about like newly wakened vampires, only to melt away with the first hint of ...

I was there for a time, until I was not. But in that moment between the there and the not there, something arose, almost like a feeling. Or at least I thought that was what it was. Only now, in hindsight, I cannot but wonder if perhaps what I mistook for feeling was not instead something instinctual, beyond my control. Like certain organisms drawn toward light or warmth. That would explain a lot. The ease of it all. The painlessness of slipping ...

Mirabelle weeps with the coming of dawn. She does not know why. Nor does the dawn. She knows only that she smiles upon the rising sun each morning, and it smiles back, but with a glow reserved and pleasing, saving its harsh glare for later, for those unfortunates crossing open desert or bearing life’s great burdens.   For now the morning is only Mirabelle and her sun. Each morning they meet this way, not because she has anywhere to be so early, but because there is no one else in her life who lifts her up like this, who makes her face glow and imbues her with warmth. And yes, Mirabelle weeps, but it is not the weep of sadness. No, she sheds her tears for the emerging day, and for the joy of a love once only dreamt of, but now made ...

It is months, brother. Months we’ve been at this. Nigh on a year even. And are we any closer? We have searched every nook, every dark corner, only there’s no way out.   Indeed, brother, the search is long, arduous, and yet even now there appears in the distance a pure white light that may be our salvation. Lead on, brother and I shall be fast behind. For have I ever left your side throughout our long travail?   Push on. We shall yet be free. Only, Jesus, the light it blinds. And the hands that draw us from the darkness, while oh so cold, seem also to welcome and nurture, as though searching, brother, searching for us all ...

It was none of my doing. After all, what did I know? Only that it was my turn, my place and time. A chance to blaze a trail, carve my mark on the face of it. But no one told me how or what or even why. No manuals were provided. I was simply flung from the precipice, out into space with all the rest. And now, as I fall, I do what I can to make a difference, change a life, create something where there was nothing. All the while glancing down at the fast-approaching bottom, redoubling my effort to finish what I started, so that later, when another passes by, they will know I was ...

My father prowled the plains of the Serengeti, crept stealthily among the vines of the Borneo jungle.   In those long blacked-out grand mal moments, as he lay broken at the foot of the stairs, I imagine him striding proudly over the land, flinging himself effortlessly upon the face of Everest.   His life, his legacy is now how I choose to remember it. Whether real or imagined, I can make of him what he could not. And I see his weathered face gazing up defiantly at a god who gave him nothing but pain, I watch as he smiles and says out loud,   Is that all you ...

I planted two roses this evening, and they seem content enough with their places in the garden. Out of sight of one another, so no cause for jealousy. Each free to do its level best, to reign supreme among humble hydrangea and pedestrian plumbago.   When spring at last returns, each will throw itself skyward in search of accolade, insecure in the absence of blossom, uncertain of its place.   Until there comes a day both roses reach a height where each comes in sight of the other, and in that moment there will ensue a febrile rush, to be first—taller, brighter, more fragrant than the other.   Only we do not know their souls, their foibles and insecurities. We see only the outcome, the wondrous outburst born of envy and ...