Willi Brown

Category: Poetry

  • Waymore Random

    Waymore Random

    Music: Al Gromer Khan (“Conga Jog”) Words and Remix: Willi Brown

    leaving aside all evidence 

    that discipline is a drag

    Let’s assume that humans

    all want some kind of goal 

    Then the question is how we get there

    and, the input along the way

    that changes your objective 

    and modulates your soul

    …

    Wish I could claim divine inspiration 

    Could unfold a tattered map

    Some ragged paper catcher of my dreams

    then i could point to some direction

    Like I’m the master of my plan

    But this is way more Random than it seems

    Yeah, it’s waymore random than it seems

    …

    14 billion light years argue 

    against the limited local view

    So I’m of the mind to wonder what’s the point 

    But unless I’m in depression 

    I’m always rolling somewhere 

    Even if it’s just another joint

    …

    I claim to be a poet 

    and it protects me from the game 

    all competitive and thrashing up the stream

    I’m all “just dreams and vague directions” (Gorka) too cool 😎 for…  school

    But yeah possibly less random than it seems

    Oh yeah, totally, less random than it seems

    …

    So when your heart begins to notice

    Some doubt and hesitation

    Just breathe and make a friend with another change 

    Whether you march ahead, 

    or you juke and dance around

    May your trip be light and always long and strange

  • Beg Forgiveness

    Beg Forgiveness

    It’s no time to complicate

    To arrange or communicate

    Add more layers to the dress

    Consider angles of load and stress

    Master techniques, straighten lines

    Research approaches, estimate times

    Prepare the process or perfect the plan

    Apologize or repay the man

    No time to add another flock of words

    Just time to vanish like imagined birds

    No time to worry about what happens so

    Just close your eyes and let them go

  • Friends I Miss You

    Friends I Miss You

    friends, I miss you out there / in all the worlds / friends, I miss you

    Composed and Recorded 20jan17

    A morning like today, like any other, like you say, that coat could have done. that election could have kept you warm. And yet, so this morning, out the door you flew to Washington, to wishful thinking, to those long deep drinks at the bar. No, there’s a flooded street now, high and low emotions. There’s a flooded street now and a long deep drink and a cold, clear mirror, a mirror with no back, which admits nothing, which contains all reveries, nothing. look at the truth and back home to the ground, around us, where a hand reaches, shoulder and a light kiss.

    Friends, I miss you out there in the country and the world, and all the worlds. Friends, I miss you. And yet I touch you. right now. through waves, bits, I touch you. Friends, I miss you? You’re right here. We’re all right here together. Round a campfire. You know how it is? It’s. It’s like that. So you bring it in. Throw a little tamborine on it. Everybody’s all… a little tickle.

    Friends, I miss you. I know that I don’t write enough, I know that I don’t call. Yeah, well, I could say I’m busy. We’re all busy. We all got our hands full and our arms full and our eyes full and our mouths full.

    And damn, if, you know, it when it all comes down to it… shoo, fill my entire life out of one good hug. One good, true and real conversation like I had tonight.

    Friends, I miss you. And you’re marching. Or you’re sleeping. But we’re all still around the same campfire. It ain’t them. There is no them, okay? There’s only us.

    May all beings be happy. May all beings be free.

    [Podcast is brought to you by…]

    Sunset on the Malecon deciembre ’24
    Willi Chief Wahoo Brown
    Chief Wahoo grinning in a sweater Point Richmond, CA 2019

  • Love Gives Time Space

    Oh …stay my hand that seeks your palm

    forgive my ear that longs to sink

    into the pool of your voice

    which only music

    of the purest tone could bear.

    your skin is buttered, vibrant

    before the crust of my longing

    time is now the blade between

    this midnight poem and the resolution

    of my lust.

    and the chime

    is spreading outwards

    from the central history

    of my desires

    satisfaction has not and will never

    resolve this boy, this pen, this poem chiming

    from you and i

    rippling back to 1985

    and forward to the next line

    all so damned archetypal

    consummation being both

    mythic and mistaken

    i can taste you now

    from across the many futures,

    your delicious moan

    echoes back from yesterday and on

    and on my lonely hand

    pushes time and lust and memory

    out into the waves

    setting free the myth

    and the mistake

    to find me when

    the winds of change

    have changed

    again

  • Double Dub

    Double Dub avec beatz

    Seems everybody is just too stunned to look back
    And the look-ahead holds just a mountain of graveyard black
    Yet my watch tells me I got an appointment in the morning
    I don’t need a needle to tell me – morning may never come

    When this year started I said the ’19 can go to hell
    Something didn’t die but it would’ve been just as well
    I got the penalty box for riding out there into harm’s way
    …pain’s easier to face with an option to look away

    *
    They say it always gets better baby
    but I think I’ll just pass
    You can take double dub (2020) and…
    tattoo my ass

    There was friendship for days and a mountain of golden sunshine
    People coming together singing “Time’s up!“ all down the line
    But then the Suits with the news, they started dumping their shares
    Controlling the story so the people would be unawares

    So we had a paranoid spring and summer confusion kicked in
    And the rich got so richer and casualties kept pouring in
    Yeah the West Coast was burning and cops kept murdering black men
    Yeah the west kept burning and cops kept murdering black women

    *
    They say it always gets better
    but baby I think I’ll just pass
    You can take double dub
    And tattoo my ass

    Tired of surviving dog eat dogging all day?
    Consumer cellular Netflix those thoughts all away
    Comfort is killer, sugar always comes with a price
    It’s time to take two the hard way first let me add us some spice

    *
    They say it always gets better
    but baby I think I’ll just pass
    You can take double dub
    And tattoo my ass

    It can always get worse
    I can’t breathe … the past
    Don’t call it 2020
    I can’t see through all this ash

    They say it always gets better
    but baby I think I’ll just pass
    You can take double dub
    And tattoo my ass … goodbye 👋

    Double Dub spoke.word

  • Sliding on Vinyl

    Another insertion

    This time a cab from Newark

    I can’t see a badge but the accent is African

    The sky could be any season

    The air, any industry, sweat and petrol

    I bounce in the back

    Of this yellow Ford

    Generic black interior

    Without breakfast or sleep having

    lost much more than three hours

    Cause certainly my dinner

    in the Sierra foothills

    was half a day ago

    And now sliding on vinyl

    I recognize NewYork approaching me

    First the tool booth cutie

    Do-rag, yellow safety vest, mirror aviators

    Big lips do a little kiss/sniff/purse move

    As we pull away and she

    prepares For the next encounter

    And the cabbie’s sad dixie cup rattles

    with pens and straw

    As my phone charger cord snakes back

    from his lighter plug

    Juicing back to connected life

    For one more day

    And we then dip

    Holland Tunnel US 1 & 9-Truck

    Through the alien wonders of Jersey City

    Why humans spend so much to crowd

    Is now somewhat beyond me

    Cab 91 (dispatched by Patricia Canty)

    Bears me east into MnHaddn

    His garmin promising an arrival time

    Odds averaged against the crowd

    Every passenger a poem, a progress

    We <3 ny

  • Beg forgiveness

    It’s no time to complicate

    To arrange or communicate

    Add more layers to the dress

    Consider angles of load and stress

    Master techniques, straighten lines

    Research approaches, estimate times

    Prepare the process or perfect the plan

    Apologize or repay the man

    No time to add another flock of words

    Just time to vanish like Imagined birds

    No time to worry about what happens so

    Just close your eyes and let them go

  • Controlled Burn

    Majestic forest Northern
    California summer crunch
    each step dry cracking 
    Deadfall 
    Overhead widow makers
    everywhere blow downs and 
    knock downs
    Tinder really
    Dead 
    Wood
    my thoughts also crunchy 
    Fire Fear
    Armageddon too!
    I think I want it to just be over 
    So much pain
    In the news
    more pain
    in the forest, the streets, families
    PAIN
    Even sex seems painful now
    Poetry too!

    I brought a small notebook
    Out to this wood 
    on retreat 
    But forgot to remind myself 
    “bring a pen”
    Then found one and it’s out of ink
    So much pain
    So I’m typing a phone note
    By the flicker of an led tea light
    Instead of a candle
    Because…
    Fire

     

    27 jun 19

  • cat with herb

    On the front step
    Watching the orange cat
    Chewing… Biting really
    The herb growing by the sidewalk
    Tiny blue blossoms
    I don’t know… maybe it’s catnip
    I thought, “this‘d make a good poem”
    But it wasn’t dirty enough or something
    Because honestly, in my hand,
    Was a device tuned to a digital book about behavioral triggers
    Orange cat out in nature staring with tail extendedBecause maybe someday I want to make something
    More of my life than impulsively scribbling down
    These dirty scraps of noticing…
    Not even insights… Just saw a cat, big deal
    But he was so mad at this herb
    Maybe it wasn’t catnip
    And a real poet would be reading a book on native herbs
    Then of course the cat noticed me
    And stared at me hard like… I really can’t say
    As if it wanted me to turn into a big pizza
    Or a live tuna fish
    He even took a few steps towards me
    And let out a miserable squawk
    But I wasn’t feeling it
    maybe I was being cat like
    He gave up and walked away

  • Rainin’ Heavy – ’06

    wayback debris / fading crumbs / feeling

    screenshot of wayback machine snapshot from 2006