Brian Kenneth Swain

Ten minutes in the post office line, and all the while there persisted a distant cheeping, like a fine machine crying out for oil. Facing the clerk at last, the sound was louder now and from behind the counter. So naturally I asked. Chicks was the reply. At my benighted gaze he reached below and set a small cardboard box on the counter, air holes and an up arrow pointing up. Sure enough, one dozen baby chicks, tiny beaks poking out through the holes, their fate entrusted to the loving care of the U. S. Postal Service. It was humorous and sad, and I left unsure how to feel. A risky but no doubt adventurous journey for such a frail family, and one unlikely to end well even if everything goes fine en ...

Endless obsidian scar stretches out before me as the gauge creeps higher and the whine of the tires goes from cry to scream. Drowsy with the late hour, focused only on home and hearth, the bastard slips in behind, following for a mile or more before pulsing blue light adrenalin as high beams sear the rear view and I drift to the right and slow. After that just a blur of heartbeats and quiet curses, and all I see as I sit and wait and fume is the far side of the road where black tree skeletons vibrate faint blue against the night sky. ...

Rhyme is the poet’s parachute, arresting too soon the vital rush, the vertiginous cyclone, of thought and language. Rhythm is a backstop at the world series, protection from the hard-thrown wildly spinning turn of phrase whose meaning, dealt only a glancing blow by the reader, might otherwise carom into the crowd. And form…form is the straitjacket from which no writer escapes. Protected from the insanity of his own words, the poet struggles to break free, but his cries only echo up and down the empty ...

She is her mother’s first born and blessed as such. In these first few fragile moments, her very breath yet tenuous, she looks up at me with what seems like recognition, and her lips, all tiny and pale, struggle to say something, though that, of course, is impossible. Still, it feels to me like words or at least the precursors of words. and I wonder if perhaps she has been waiting all these months to deliver to me alone her mysterious message, Only minutes old but determined as only the innocent can be to succeed, she clutches my fingertip and makes me ...

They are older than you or I can ever be. Older than age itself. And because they have defied time rooted in this place, gripping the earth with pithy and tenacious talons, gazed from on high at the scurrying malcontents that pass for life in this place, they are afforded a unique perspective on the passing days, objective, yet timeless as a stone. They are not given to opinion. Nor are they compelled to be right. They fight no wars save for the occasional struggle against the blade. They watch us every day and they never ever ...

Earl the donkey in a fit of gluttony ate all the sweet purple cactus fruit, fruit we had hoped to savor ourselves this very evening. But it is gone now for another season, like the peach that falls before the squirrel, and the fig inside which the worm burrows, warm and content. Every creature drawn to sustenance, according to its hunger or its passion. Every morsel brought forth, given meaning, in this our season of ...

Might there be, the neophyte asks, certain topics that fall outside the purview of the poet? Those which are, to put it plainly, off limits or regarded perhaps, as being in such poor taste as to be eschewed at all cost? Well, the poet responds, momentarily pondering, it seems life and death, love and loss, these are really the big four, and, as such, fair game for all. As for me, I would steer clear of anything involving smelly cheeses or animals with scales. Avoid, as well, all allusions to reality television or anything that takes place in the northernmost counties of Wisconsin. But for these, the sage opined, all else is at your disposal, just so long as you come to your desk and your pen pure of heart and with clarity of ...

I concede to being well past the apex of my life, at least as measured from time’s perspective. Closer to the end than the beginning, the poet might say. And yet, despite this uncomfortable admission, I find I still evaluate each tree I encounter, not according to any biological criteria or even from the perspective of beauty, but rather on its ability to support a tree house or to be climbed. And I wonder at the magnificent view that awaits the brave soul who makes the attempt. For while my grown-up side advises against so rash a thing, the twelve-year-old who still walks by my side knows well that looking upon a single tree from down here is a grim and pitiful thing against the boundless expanse waiting to be looked upon from ...

It was only a lamp, and an ugly one at that. Footballs, even small foam ones, bounce so unpredictably. Where’s the justice in holding a small child accountable for that? And so I wait… Of course these things always seem to happen at ten in the morning, just to make sure I have all day to ponder the nature and the measure of my penance. And so I wait… There are countries, I’m told, that have laws against psychological torture, probably even Geneva Convention guidelines. But not in this house. Here, all bets are off. All’s fair in child rearing. And so I wait… Perhaps he’ll have a good day at the office. Maybe he’ll be feeling magnanimous, forgiving. He could decide that the wait, the apprehension, is punishment ...

See Sally, Dick, and Jane in their pretty white house with the picket fence, Spot in his doghouse. Dad smiling as he puffs his pipe and pushes the mower. Mom taking the casserole from the oven. See all the houses without locks. See the boys and girls as they play in their yards or peddle their stingray bikes with playing cards in the spokes. See the family, sitting in front of the TV with Jeannie and Samantha, Jethro and Gilligan. All on the same three Bat-channels. See Wiley, Elmer, Bugs, and Woody on Saturday morning. See dad get out of his chair to change the channels. See the schoolchildren hide under their desks to avoid the nuclear holocaust. Hide, children, hide. See the men in their short hair fly off into the sky to walk on other ...