Heath Brougher



The United States of Anhedonia

Plaintowns, plaincities, talking in
boring sentences; the banality of postmodern
American society; only thing exciting
is the fear caught from the tv;
the dailygrind grinding away the life—
the weeks, months, years, ground-down
into tiny pieces that, when assembled,
make up an entire life spent wasted by trivial routine;
largeportions of that life hang in heavy boredom,
day after day; ennui drifts throughout
the doldrums of these plaintowns, plaincities,
yawning in the eternal forecast of reigning tedium;
the only smallcure for this lethargic monotony
is the omnipresent shoppingmalls that besmudge
the landscape of these plaintowns, plaincities—
an ugly motley flashing among the lassitudinal weariness
permeating the nappy air of these pococurantist plaintowns, plaincities,
giving brief respite from the otherwise jaded fatigue
that runs through the veins of the day,
that consumes the lives livingout so dull and flat
in these sleepy plaintowns, plaincities;
all the colors of the mind so monotone in these societies;
so lifeless, as if in a permanent winter;
brown and drab clothing; it’s almost as if these plaintowns, plaincities
don’t even wish for a bloomingup of vivacity,
as if they’d rather coughout and live their lives in
scheduled and regimented robotic segments.



Those Vegas

Humble air not here
—only the squalid dry
and the monotonous plantlife it breeds;
sucked so deeply dull into boredom
that we wager for amusement,
trading snakes for cherries,
building and building over the years,
bright row after row, See to shining See,
eyes jump rapidly, here and there—

—observe the electric colors we have wrought—

we dot a wicked luminescence among these meadows,
bright and hollow, steeped in the belly
of our parched moneyfade streets;
sins afoul the greasy greed, afoul the seeds of sin
planted by the preachers who harvested this town.



Electrical Juice

Pigeon wings hang in the dusty blood-dripping air;
they dangle flutterless, dead, from the wires of the powerlines—

the electric crucifixes of suburbia—

a quaint sacrifice of a wide religion in a swarming town;
suspended now, heart only half a heart;

those flying things met spontaneous death;

the giants of the past seemed tiny and mere—

“how can you live like this?” whistled through the breeze;

the bird slumped motionless, hanging
over the street as the crackle
of intermittent voltage continued;

chaos and interruption reigned, pressed on the day
with their heavy clamor so dense that, having nowhere else to go,
grew into the sky, disrupting the navigation of airborne things—
things once magnanimous and immune
now subject to cloaked impiety—the bird slumped, as in half,
hanging, dangling on the wire above the street
as that crackle of intermittent voltage carried on.



Self-Inflicted Opprobrium

The hands cut themselves off
for stealing; this is that thing
called self-sadism; with a wrack of guilt
and no other choice, it is done
with a sharp sliver of the butcherknife;

prickly screamable, the Dog Rose
makes its midnight moonblooming;
sire of fortune and karma rolls out rose-red blood,
selfsevered, to spill forth its sanguine ejaculate upon the world;

seeds sprayed from the wrist
of the hand that cut itself off,
like eating your face; paying no attention to the parameters
defined by Proximity; a crimson lake on the floor.



The Deadbody Lights

The dead bodylights come,
shroud; what color are they?
a glowing green? a florescent blackness? or
just darkness itself, a darkness alone? does
stimulation or destimulation of the third eye cause
a whiteness or the appearance of that tunnel
with light at its end or am I scientifically mistaken?
you find a tooth wrapped in a leaf;
everything eventually dissolves;
carbon billows outward.




Heath Brougher is the poetry editor of Five 2 One Magazine and co-poetry editor of Into the Void Magazine. He has published three chapbooks, A Curmudgeon Is Born (Yellow Chair Press 2016), Digging for Fire and Your Noisy Eyes (both with Stay Weird and Keep Writing Press 2016). He is a Best of the Net Nominee and his work has been translated into Albanian. He was the judge of Into the Void Magazine’s 2016 Poetry Competition and edited the anthology “Luminous Echoes,” the sales of which will be donated to help with the prevention of suicide. His work has been published in Of/with, Chiron Review, MiPOoesias, Main Street Rag, Word For/Word, Mobius, The Seventh Quarry, Gold Dust, Third Wednesday, Cruel Garters, Gloom Cupboard, The Helios Mss,, *82 Review, Otoliths, Fowl Feathered Review, Leaves of Ink, Dark Matter Journal, A New Ulster, BlazeVOX, and elsewhere. When not writing he helps with the charity Paws Soup Kitchen which gives out free dog/cat food to low income families with pets.
 
 
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