Total Reflection by Tom Trippe |
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GENESIS
by Brad Buchanan A child's cry conjures parents from the dark, Calls out for light to find a way to believe Its endless needs can be satisfied. The voice of God is disconsolate, confused And shaken with tearful rage—a word emerges From the sobs and shuddering howls: water, Mother, father, pain, a void in her arms, A missing object, a torn togetherness, Everything wrong or anything alone. The name begins our traumatized return To rest and goodness, promises nightlong peace Someday, when the little brain wrestles angelic fatigue And finally loses. To hear is to obey Until the creator phrases her demand Less forcefully, slowly moves away into patterns Of superstitions, disappearances And gradually predictable absences— First hours, then nights at a time of independence. We imagine and keep our sudden distance, Evolve a regular routine, a sabbath Of responsibility, find ourselves No longer her food and drink, her body and blood. We fall from the grace of her absolute newbornhood And learn to depend on the shakier pretense Of infancy: a reasonable stance Against indulgences, the slow erosion of love Into a regimen of chaste observance. We will forget the urgent, magic voice That breaks our hearts at dawn without remorse. ELEMENTAL by Brad Buchanan Not the precondition of water, But its shape and subtle flavor— you bought the glass, and chose the cleanser That we use in our dishwasher, Inherited the refrigerator Where I drink, not knowing better— Not ubiquitous as air, But its silent guarantor Of ordinary hospitable warmth— You program the furnace, monitor The secret conduits that swerve Above us as we live, unaware— Not the friable strength of earth, But its patient gardener— You bend to plant the seeds our daughters Will admire as they grow together, Build the trellis that we’ll share As we grow old and our shoots wither— Not the recklessness of fire But the ceremonious burning Of a candle during dinner— you risk fingers for our cheerful Faces, coax an atmosphere— Not the force that keeps us here, But the manner of our merging, Not the elements entire, But you are why they came to care. FAST FOOD NATION by Brad Buchanan McDonald's was emancipation From bag lunches, chores, allowance, And all the rest of our teenage inheritance. It promised sweet deliverance From delayed gratification, Manners, consequences, home- Truths of an older generation That had already abandoned them Except in vestiges, like mealtimes. Ours was a cheerful, disposable Communion—careless of Tupperware, As light and resilient as styrofoam, And just as friable. We ate freedom And stayed thin, for adolescence Had its own natural discipline; Our destiny was so manifest Although we were only white, middle-class Canadian kids, we sat down to dream Over mouthfuls of thoughtless optimism. We knew anything that our tastes could agree on Must have been something like nutrition.  Brad Buchanan Brad Buchanan teaches English at California State University, Sacramento. His poetry and fiction have appeared in more than 160 journals worldwide, among them Canadian Literature, Fulcrum, Twentieth Century Literature, Grain, and the Journal of Modern Literature. He has published two books of poetry: The Miracle Shirker, which won an Honorable Mention in the 2007 Writer’s Digest awards; and Swimming the Mirror, which won a First Prize in the 2009 Writer's Digest awards. He also runs Roan Press, Sacramento’s Small Literary Publisher. His most recent book, Oedipus Against Freud, has just appeared from the University of Toronto Press. |
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