Poems
by Terry
Brinkman
Sleepy Whale # 50
Old tarpaulin facial blemishes
Corroborated Irish Catholic
Backbone of our Empire
No Irishman peasant
Worthy of his salt
Needless to say
Few irascible words
Waxed hotter
Passage of arms
Series of years
Pooh Pooh the suggestion
Neighbors across the channel
Quixotic idea
Egregious balderdash
Sleepy Whale 51
Little less interesting point
Common parlance
Coal seams polls apart
Blithering useless
Lesser or keeper
A student of the human soil
Looker and least of the game
Brandished a knife
Cold steel
Setting off change
A Danny-man
Queen’s evidence
Utterly repudiated
Love vendettas
Sleepy Whale # 52
His God I mean Christ was a Jew too
Like me
Plain facts
Heated fashion offensive
Say for himself away wrath
I am not right
Non-committal glean
Two to four eyes conversing
Stipulate both sides of question
Hard and fast proceeded rules
Boast right and wrong
Room for little good-will
Improvement intolerance
Sonnet CCCLVII
Buried here under St. Luke’s walk of brick
Dutch oven in the burning sun
Plague we all become ashes to ashes skeleton
They took up their Spade and Stick
Burn tower of silence arsenal
Poor mamma lay with her son simpleton
That was an awful Monday death phenomenon
Kind of a canvas arithmetic
Three midnight days rather long Piercy high
The seven graver digger’s palace
Out of sight out of mind horrify
Jotting down the recipes of Alice
Eating Sweet Potato Pie
Drink milk from Alice’s Chalice
Sonnet CCCLXVII
Shadows hang over the paradox que
Well warm misunderstood young
Stacie task bee with me unsung
Day by day as we unweave the curfew
Miscreant eyes glinting wrinkled Nehru
Artist weaves ghost stories high strung
Gaius in the market sprung
Shadow over the hell of a time view
Heart of man not sundering bloom
Dine on a red cone capped worm
Cypher jugglers’ of apocrypha broom
Smiles to Dublin high road confirm
Her after life musing flume
Undramatic monologues’ princely term
Sonnet CCCLXXV
Hasty short hand a sights zoom
Hand into her vest pocket over her backbone
Good lit views non-illuminating cornerstone
Long wind closing at the museum cloakroom
Butterfly flutters flight at her Tomb
Tree forks hue and cry postpone
Fox and geese play brooding tone
Artist unquiet ghost bitters room
No vixen bully tapster’s gap
Alarmed face inward light Zen
Tell me in my ear as I nap
Vestal lamp shadow hang over the den
Sooth Sayers Bird-God mishap
Breathe another spirit reconciliation Oxygen
Sonnet CCCLXX
Plum juice dribbles from her mouth down my back
Wiping off with her pink handkerchief rag
Bit nervy reminds me of Antisthenes flag
Been walking in blarney muck unveil cardiac
Her hip high new boot heels on view above hanging rack
Hand to her chin filling the bag
Dark woman looks out for squalls drag
Spitting stones out the window from mouth of Jack
Walked abreast silently as the north wind blew
Ail for a drink before and after dinner
Words of words for words Blue
The forest muttering an Irish spinner
What of it offering my Kingdom for a brew
Wandering Ashland’s Woods with Tess and Emmy Breadwinner
