Poem – Bumping Into the Sky (By Michael H. Brownstein)

You think intolerance a white paste

you can spread across the air. Day comes

with a break between minutes, the red

flash of the red-winged blackbird,

a greeting from your I’noGo tied*

slung not to your belt, but to your insides:

If you say you cannot tell

what is true and what is not true,

you are saying you have lost

faith with what is real. Clouds bunch

beyond the ice, lay out a steady rain of sleet,

move within wind like a great skua

in need of food.

Author Bio: Michael H. Brownstein

Michael H. Brownstein has been widely published throughout the small and literary presses. His work has appeared in The Café Review, American Letters and Commentary, Skidrow Penthouse, Xavier Review, Hotel Amerika, Free Lunch, Meridian Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, The Pacific Review, Poetrysuperhighway.com and others. In addition, he has nine poetry chapbooks including The Shooting Gallery (Samidat Press, 1987), Poems from the Body Bag (Ommation Press, 1988), A Period of Trees (Snark Press, 2004), What Stone Is (Fractal Edge Press, 2005), I Was a Teacher Once (Ten Page Press, 2011), Firestorm: A Rendering of Torah (Camel Saloon Press, 2012), The Possibility of Sky and Hell: From My Suicide Book (White Knuckle Press, 2013) and The Katy Trail, Mid-Missouri, 100 Degrees Outside and Other Poems (Kind of Hurricane Press, 2013). He is the editor of First Poems from Viet Nam (2011).