Words — Cameron Brooks

Kensington Kindness

In the shadow of a steeple
In a street filled with people beaten down by the cold,
Sitting cross-legged, tired and half-naked,
Maggie is 20 years old
She drifted northeast to outrun a beast
She's looking for someplace to go

Her cuts they ain't healing
At least that's a feeling
The needle's damage is done
The voice in her head is back from the dead
Telling her that she's just a bum
She's been called a pest,
Resisted arrest,
Just looking for someplace to go

The cars and the buses,
They quickly go by
A mother, she fusses when she reads Maggie's sign
A father, he cusses when his son asks him, "Why?"
It's been days since someone's looked in her eyes

In the stink of a stairwell, there's fellas who mean well
Who bring Maggie into their band
They're thieving and grieving a world they believed in
That's really a castle of sand
They joke that they're cursed
But they've been through worse
They're just looking for someplace to go

In the building above them, a hand of the gov'ment
Is reaching to clean out the street
It says that a tough love that still uses handcuffs
Will bring folks to choose therapy
But is it a friend to be a dead end
For those looking for someplace to go?

The sirens and firings still echo at night
And Maggie is dragging to just get outside
A storm then starts pouring with no end in sight
It's been years since tears have filled her eyes

In a hospital bed, Maggie lifts up her head
And sees that she's not alone
A fella from that stairwell who always had meant well
Is standing there sober as stone
He said, "My days ain't all good, but it's understood
That I'm looking for someplace to go"

In the shadow of a steeple
In a street filled with people,
Maggie is 30 years old

The Parts I Choose

If you were to ask me of all the sights that I have seen
I would try to answer literally
We would then stare at a canvas fully black
Every color in the sack
You'd say to take another crack

Now it's about the parts I choose
A faulty logic based on win or lose
I've seen enough to show you how I feel
What it means will be revealed

If you were to ask me of all the things that I have heard
I would tell you every single word
We would then pick up and stack the verbs and nouns
Entrapped in a wall of sound
You'd say there's narrative to be found

Now it's about the parts I choose
A storyline that somewhere is overused
I've heard enough to tell you how I feel
What it means will be revealed

If you were to ask me of all the life that I have lived
I would list you all the joy it takes and gives
We would then sum up to find the total cost
If it's a total loss
You'd say there's memories I should toss

Now it's about the parts I choose
A consciousness with one long tangled fuse
I've lived enough to know just how I feel
What it means will be revealed

Now it's about the parts I choose
A paradox that gives me no excuse
I've lived enough to know just how I feel
What it means will be revealed

Good Things Come in Time

Swells of blue
tremble from your lips when I reach for you
Resemble all the riptides that you’re pulled into
Those salty sails tell all the tales pain ever knew
Those faulty trails where all else fails, what could you do
than seal off all the doorways in your mind?
And kneel and pray that good things come in time?

I understand that words have done you wrong
I’m just a man singing another song
What I do will echo the truth that you’ll know was here within this rhyme
And bring a feeling that does some healing when good things come in time

Weeds of gold
Unravel from your crown where ragged roots unfold
They traveled toward the sound of self-stories told
Those sentences built barbed-wire fences around your soul
Those guilty senses from false pretenses, where could you go
than further down the patterns in your mind
unsure if good things really come in time?

A View From The Stoop

On the stoop, in a loop
Jesse’s spreading ashes with a cancer tube
I’m out back with a panic attack
Shaking out a pill box that’s fallen through the cracks
While drones above chase out the doves
Don’t worry, honey, they’ll never dive toward the ones you love

O say can you see?
They’re looking at thee
Ring to find a dog
But they’ll hunt you when you flee
No, no friend, can’t have my SSN
But Google, here’s my number
Go on turn me in

Wearing rickets, hearing crickets
Taxes spent on season tickets
No harm done when it’s all for
Fun through friction, more affliction
Ozempic for your wine addiction
Looking out for guns when you know you don’t have one

O say can you see?
Is your mind really free?
Here’s a deep fake of a chump
Who is chopping down a tree
Wells are dried to cool the machines
You don’t need a child to know your legacy

Idle tears, long past years
Leaning on a Post with three deaf ears
But I’ll hear it from you if you hear it from him
Paywalls falling on journalism
While kings below smuggle cargo
Don’t worry, honey, what can hurt you if you don’t know?

O say can you see?
Be careful what you read
There’s looters in the traffic who have got a mouth to feed
The young and restless hear the stopping presses
While elders reassess what real success is

Don’t do drugs, avoid the thugs
Stick to hugs when you’re cutting rugs
Reach up and climb so you can
Gain some knowledge and pay for college
With student loans and eating garbage
Now you’re in line to be laid off for Ai

O say can you see?
Plant your seed, but for a fee
Burning corporate ladders bridge infertility
Mind your legislation, license, registration
Don’t check your watch, the train has left the station

Still Running

Sometimes I wake in a deep sweat
With infinite years on my mind
I can't see in the chasm of this concept
How an unending good can be designed
When the cries come calling in the wind
When the sun's long shadows move again

It's easy to turn suffering into virtue
When it's easy to measure how hard we fought
Ain't it cruel and don't it disturb you
To be tested for something you ain't got?
When you're told that you're born in sin
Is when you look forward to the end

How long can we go
When pain is what we know?
How far can we run
When the spinning is never done?

They keep telling me, "Take it easy"
They keep saying, "Just get through the night"
But what can you do for the senses
That were never made to be right?
And the ripples that flow from these wakes
Flood currents and form more mistakes

And we keep kicking down folks from the north end
To the same damn thing in the south
There ain't no well in the world good for quenching
That thirst that remains in our mouth
And the sand is searing our skin
And the water is withheld from within

How long can we go
When pain is what we know?
How far can we run
When the spinning is never done?

Fools Gold

It was too early for takeoff, it was too late for light
Angel had the heavy hand at the bar next to my flight
"Tell me was it a girl?" she said. "Or was it turbulence when you’re working?"
But she couldn’t read the palm on my face
So she told me to keep on searching
Lord knows my jaded soul had made its goal to pay its toll
A glass half full with whiskey and ice would not suffice as something nice
So I put some wind under my wings and sunshine on my sleeve
Blew down those nights in bed when I thought I’d never leave
Fools gold

I was slow playing coffee in a diner near the Jersey pier
There were face tattoos, different points of view, a pack of cigs to help you persevere
He walked in speaking Spanish with his friend and had a spare seat in his van
When we drove off, he flipped the cop off and yelled, “Catch me if you can!”
No time for pros and cons, I was cruising on with my cell phone gone
Blue jeans and a green backpack and a tall cash stack from a game of black jack
Took a Greyhound to the Gulf Coast and slept out in the sand
Woke up to a fella who was fishing, he reached out for my hand
Fools gold

She was leaning on the rail of a ferry on the way to New Orleans
With a dimpled smile she talked for a while about her love for books and thieves
We made a mad dash to a wedding that we crashed using names from an art museum
She said, “does your life worsen when you gotta be a person who just goes with the scam?”
Footsteps coming up the stairs, a man who didn’t care he was in his underwear
He said, "don’t mope come smoke a little dope and take a long look through my roof telescope"
He pointed at a shiny dot at the end of the Milky Way
He said, "Pluto knows it’s never been a planet, it doesn’t matter what they say"
Fools gold

I was holding out my thumb in the middle of a cornfield
He pulled up in a pickup truck with a name that he never revealed
He was tired from guns and bombs that were blowing up his sleep
His camera helps him shoot right back at a devil that sold him cheap
The full view from the tops of hills didn’t give us chills when we took our pills
We knew it could only get worse, couldn’t outrun our curse like the Nez Perce
We found a spot beneath a pine tree but woke when headlights burst
A park ranger told us keep on moving but we argued that we got there first
Fools gold

She was instructing yoga on a lake near Capitol Hill
We were breathing in and out, feeling all devout with no sight of a dollar bill
She said, "come to your senses, stop building up fences that leave you blind and deaf,
Are you gonna spend your life knocking down premises until there’s nothing left?"
Now I’m back on the trail, fighting tooth and nail and goin through hell
Storing up the sum of parts so when I finally start I’ll be young at heart
I stopped to stretch my legs beneath a river dam
Caught sight of a current in the water, it reminded me who I am
Fools gold

Song to Nowhere

She cleans her skin and then begins
To realize that there is something wrong
It took a wrinkle in time to reach her bottom line
She's not sure if she'll reach where she belongs
She's losing energy in her philosophy
The city squeezes till she cannot make a sound
She goes where she knows she won't be found

He boards the plane and clears his brain
Of letters and ledgers that measure him too short
Taken for granted and disenchanted,
He's been washing windows within the last resort
He's among forgotten sons who watched his father's guns
March his future six feet under ground
He goes where he knows he won't be found

They feel their bodies breathing in
They spot each other and begin
To remember they're just embers
Burning softly till they meet another flame
And that's what makes them the same

They discuss the news and drink beers in twos
And dig their toes deeper into the sand
She says, "If life is just the sum of partial dreams
It's no wonder no one really understands"
He kills the bottle and hits the throttle
And chases where the sun is going down
They go where they know they won't be found

They feel their bodies breathing in
They touch each other and begin
To remember they're just embers
Burning softly till they meet another flame
And that's what makes them the same
That's what makes them same

Woman of the Western Hills

She goes flyin’ at night in the western hills
Her canvases wait at home for the beauty that she sees
Sometimes the sighting of lightning makes her wonder how it feels
To be free of negativity

You think that the birds can send her a word for me?
You think that the clouds will allow what the ground never would?
You think that the wind will give in and finally let her be?
You think she’ll be understood?

She goes walkin’ at night on a southern beach
Her days spent diggin’ and dancin’ with the world down at her feet
Sometimes the ocean’s a potion for the cuts she can’t reach
For a moment she feels complete

You think that the birds can sing her a song for me?
You think that the waves can convey what my words never could?
You think that the moon sometime soon will release its gravity?
You think that would do her good?

She goes drinkin’ at night at a northern bar
Making up stories in her head about the waiter she receives
Sometimes her fiction is friction of the dreams that seem too far
But it’s proof she still believes
She still believes

Trouble Letting Go

I once knew a man who was wound up real tight
Stress in his bones, couldn’t sleep through the night
Scrolling through his phone with his light blinding bright
Picking out strangers and getting into fights
Jumping at false dangers, protecting his pride
Boiling up his blood and he still don’t know why

Who cares about nameless commands?
Who just went viral and who’s holding hands?
Who cares what brainless folks know?
He had trouble just letting it go

I once knew a woman who summoned her soul
Picked out her passions and planned out her goals
Wrote her manifests in captions and posed in her posts
Broke down her barriers and beat down the bros
But she just keeps on burying em to prove what she knows
She’s built for the highs but she lives in the lows

Who cares what sexist folks say,
Who get what they want when they get in the way?
Who cares? You flexed on some Joe
She had trouble just letting it go

I once knew a politick who knew a trick or two
Who’d publish some lies just to get a rise out of you
He'd dress blame in disguise so you’d despise what is true
He’d go on attack and pound keys till he’s blue
If you’re Black or you're brown or a Muslim too
He’d make the nation 'bout him when it starts with a you

Who cares what that monger fears,
When he’ll get thrown out in a matter of years?
Who cares 'bout the dead seeds he sows?
He’s got trouble just letting it go

I once knew a journalist who had a list of names
Popped scoops like pills and fell in love with the game
He’d group with the shills but they all work the same
They build cred as insiders but they’re blind and they’re lame
And they're fed by the spiders that they’re s'posed to drain
They don't care if they’re liars if there’s something to gain

Who cares who got the news first?
And when they just bootlick, well that’s just the worst
Who cares ‘bout a score no one knows?
They got trouble just letting it go

I once knew a world where broadband was weak
When there was a shot that you’d hear yourself think
Were there idiots? A lot. But they’d only squeak
Till they installed a megaphone to hear themselves speak
They call it a mouth but it’s really a beak
And they’re still pecking out eyes with a tongue in their cheek

Who cares? Just shut up please
But everyone wants to be celebrities
Who cares? Just put down your phones
We’ve got trouble just letting it go

The Straight and Narrow

It’s a long winding road down the straight and narrow path
And your pockets get pilfered in the angst of the aftermath
And the billboards are selling you a smile is just ahead
But all the Munch-like faces are telling you you’re nearly dead
Still you form all your footsteps like the man you’re supposed to be
Yet all the forces within you split like lighting to a tree
So you look to the answer that is blowing in the wind
And you breathe it in

You will have trouble seeing double if demanding’s what you do
You may say that you know Jesus, other religions know him too
You may say that he’s your savior, still the world’s not yours to screw
Sticking to the straight and narrow is the hardest thing to do

Yes it’s a long winding road down the straight and narrow path
And the storm comes upon you with a mystifying wrath
And the bodies around you all are reaching out their hands
But your strength is leaving as you do the best you can
Still you feel like you’re hollow when you lay to rest your head
Yet the tears of tomorrow will still be yours to shed
So you look to the coming that is surely soon amen
And you start again

You will be certain to be hurting if living’s what you do
You may try to be like Jesus, he was hurting too
You may smoke through all your Camels eyeing needles to crawl through
Sticking to the straight and narrow is the hardest thing to do

Wasted Words

Through fallen arches there still gleams another way
A perfect tense for experience is not a code I’m cracking
Self-deprecation spoils the dreams in what you say
I view my friends all through the lens of all the things I’m lacking

My deep desires are sealed within
So when they die you don’t know I’m losing again

With wasted words we make worlds of absurdities
They only shelter us for so long
We cannot feel grace to freely embrace our uncertainties
Until we know they’re wrong

A coronation set the scene of my crime
My vanity made insanity of working toward a goal
The correlation is between pain and time
To slough and pull while uncomfortable — that’s the cycle of my soul

My deep desires are sealed within
So from my baser natures I lay bare
The things I fear will go nowhere
So with the life I know I will let go
And reach misery’s end

With wasted words we make worlds of absurdities
They only shelter us for so long
We cannot feel grace to freely embrace our uncertainties
Until we know they’re wrong

The Battle of Jim and Sim

One cold day I went to the office where I wrote
On my desk in a cursive mess was a hand-written note
Come see me Jim
And bring your pen
My boss was drinking whisky, reclined in a leather seat
In the corner of the room stood a man of metal half-complete
"Now look here, Jim
This here’s Sim"
"He may be made of metal, but his brain rivals God’s
I won’t have any use for you if you don’t beat these odds
Come put your pen to paper and please notice the door
If Sim writes better poetry you won’t work here anymore
Do ya hear me Jim?"

I sighed and looked around me and saw I had no choice
If I refused or got subdued we’d lose the human voice
So I grabbed my pen
And said, "Let’s begin"
"Sim why don’t you write me a story in blank verse
About the loss of long-gone love that still feels like a curse
About the hole
Inside your soul"
Sim’s head started spinning with a deep resounding groan
When his insides started roaring, it chilled me to the bone
Out his jaws he started printing a poem that hit the floor
"Well lookie there,” my boss declared. “Will we need you anymore?"

Here’s what it said:

The years have passed yet still the ache remains,
A hollow space where once your love had dwelled
I trace its edges, worn but ever sharp,
A wound that never heals, though time has fled
The world around me spins, it moves, it grows
But here I stand, encased within this void.
I reach for you, but find that I am lost,
A traveler with no path, no guide, no home.

"Hmmm, not bad … not bad," my boss said
"And I got it in 10 seconds instead"

"My boy, my boy I feel no joy in what I must do next
I know I must let you go unless you do impress
Now let’s hear you
What can you do?"
"Why don’t you write me a story with nuance?
Give me a rhyme about a moment in time when we're chasing what we want
And what's discovered don’t match its cover"

I bore my teeth and dug real deep for a memory in my mind
And then like luck, lightning struck some phrases well designed
I wrote until my fingers bled and till my wrist was sore
And when my boss was reading he wasn’t grinning anymore

Here’s what I said:

On the subway a man sits wearing nothing but a hospital gown
White beard thicker than my jadedness,
When the train stops,
The doors let in the heat, my disdain and
A man who sees the gown and says
“God has blessed you!”

Because his jeans are ragged, because his tattooed
Hand jitters on the other man’s walker like a junkie’s, I close
My eyes to silence the surly soul that thought
A bike to a train
To a sunny Sunday in a park was the sort of
Kerouacian journey done in an afternoon

“I’d give you the shirt off my back,” the man says, and
Seeing just socks beneath the gown
He offers his shoes.
Now
I am listening, now
I am sorry
As the tattooed hand requests a hand cuffed
By a patient ID and prays over a name
I still don’t know

The train stops again and I open
My eyes to an open door to a platform
Empty but for a tattooed hand
Reaching into ragged jeans
As if to piss in the middle of downtown

The blocks race by and
My eyes that no longer trust even the street signs they are seeing
Lock on bearded lips that mutter the word

Father

And an urge in my bladder tells me
I need to let go.

"That was better! That was better!" my boss said
"But I could knit a sweater in the time it took you to write that letter"

"You’ve got heart, but Sim is smart in a way that you can’t beat
He knows math and every path that makes the world complete
He can chart space
And the human race"
"Sim, why don’t you show him the depths of what you know?
A tale that unveils the start of trails and rivers that now flow
Where life began
And who I am"
Then Sim raised up his arms and it sure looked like a prayer
And then his eyes burst with fire that blinded with its glare
Then he slashed from a pillar of ash the words that struck our core
That poem made me wonder if Sim was lifeless anymore

Here’s what it said:

Before the stars had found their place,
Before the Earth in silence spun,
In whispered depths, a spark ignites,
The breath of time, the first begun
The rivers sprang from mountain peaks,
Through cracks in earth, through caverns cold,
Each drop a tale of life to come,
A path unseen, a future bold
Then through the sky, a voice once loud,
Now soft, now still, now deep, now wild,
Brought forth the hum of you and me,
A dance of dust, a wind, a child

"Jim! Jim! Why am I afraid of him?"

"Oh Jim, oh jeez, forgive me please just go back to your desk
I’ll say you win if you take your pen and just forget this test
Now will you go
If I tell you so?"
My heart beat fear in my inner-ear and my synapses — they sung
And the word I heard freed me like a bird and let me know I’d won
I knew what Sim could never do and had never done before
What I told my boss was no loss nor would be anymore
I said,
"No."

Take Me

Take me down where the clear waters run
Take me down with the seventh sun
Take me down when my work is done
Take me

Take me down on the eve of a solstice
Take me down with a healing poultice
Take me down till my soul takes notice
Take me

Take me down where the war can't reach me
Take me down where the poor are preaching
Take me down where there's more to teach me
Take me

Take me down till my head starts clearing
Take me down so I can face what I'm fearing
Take me down till I can touch what I'm nearing
Take me

Take me up at the speed of a spirit
Take me up so I can breathe and speak it
Take me up so the world can hear it
Take me

Take me up where the forests are falling
Take me up where the cries are calling
Take me up where the children are crawling
Take me

Take me up where the thunder's rolling
Take me up where the bells are tolling
Take me up where the years are stolen
Take me

Take me up to the walls unbroken
Take me up with a truth unspoken
Take me up with a heart awoken
Take me