ISSUE 28
Spring 2005

John Brehm

 

John Brehm This marks an author's first online publication John Brehm is the author of Sea of Faith, which won the 2004 Brittingham Prize from The University of Wisconsin Press (2004), and of The Way Water Moves, a chapbook from Flume Press (2002). His work has appeared in many journals, including Poetry, The Southern Review, Barrow Street, and Prairie Schooner. He lives in Brooklyn and works as a freelance writer.
Mix-Up    Click to hear in real audio


Caught sight of the moon
caught in its
net of

branches
and thought�
I've got to get free of that.

 

 

Wind Over Water    Click to hear in real audio


You can never get enough of what you don't need,
that's true, but you can sure spend some time
trying. All my life piling one emptiness
on top of another to build a house even
the slightest wind will collapse. And that wind
comes nearly every day. One can feel it
forming deep in mountain stillnesses.
There are no fish in the lake, the Dhammapada
tells us. The long-legged cranes stand in the water.
I think I know why they'd do that.
It's cool and clear and the reflection
of the flight that brought them here lingers
in the air like a trace memory above them.
They find their being in the fish not being there.

 

 

John Brehm: Poetry
Copyright © 2005 The Cortland Review Issue 28The Cortland Review