brett a. maddux is a poet from hartford & the creator of the instagram series @dinersofconnecticut. his first collection of poems, regent (Silk House Publishing,) was released in 2016. regent was written in diners, in conversations with friends about love & death & happiness & sadness & fear & joy & sex & religion & loneliness & attention & art, in the year after his mother died. here are five poems from his latest release blackbird, 4pm, a book of poems which can be purchased at whichiswhypress.com.
Written & Photographed by
brett a. maddux
retail, 8am
new fear tuesday morning miracle calling in my bets on all the horses never placed & I am due a minor fortune to carry me back through the streets of my childhood babysitter crippled middle school librarian yellow hardcover first nipple I ever saw mormon grocers elegant nurses putting their fingers in my third grade asshole a man once said I'd never amount to anything more than my mother grinding her teeth away every night hospital visitations miniature smiles & if I ever make it out of this town alive long odds two bits on the smallest colt | if not all the way at least half
what comes next is anticlimax the god of meager losses the last photograph remaining of eyes early morning breakfast cigarette lips in winter hair still messy from sex under blankets bloody knee concrete congregation if it ain't holy at least it's painful & they don't say it that way now do they they don't pray for arthritic housemaids low wage department store cash register clerks taking the piss out of mega church pastor porcelain coupons housewives can I talk to your manager her heart still beating beneath her apron | hi my name is cindy can I help you yes mother I still love you
what comes next is revelation journey without destination wrist brace back ache medication some paul harvey recitation on your childhood radio station every song sounds like salvation that is her laughter in the cobwebs that is her singing in the attic those are her teeth turned into dust that is her love that calls the cat in |
lungs, 11am
so much harder to look it in the eye when it is smiling back patting good old boys bellies bleeding battery acid to take the bark off trees so much harder to say sorry if you never really mean it online shopping sibling coffins a good deal if you can get it free shipping lungs filling I hear misery don't come cheap
so much sweeter to drink my sister's blood when she dies young & preventably honey keep the noise down daddy is watching his shows in this one all my devils dress business casual shake hands with wise men & naked angels in this one mother draws a bath & I wash her hair while she opens her veins in lukewarm water | in this one I tell you my name but you do not hear it in this one I have coins enough to pay off those barking dogs bounty what my soul is worth bound to drain her bathwater drown me if I get too close
a river where the light flows upstream toward the scent of something permanent & there is no night I have found where there are not bones to outlive me gently worn away by coursing water & when there is no blood left somewhere tender let her body lick my lungs clean & I will be ready let the dogs have my soul & I will be ready let my mother know I am sorry & I will be ready |
indifference, 9pm
/inˈdif(ə)rəns/
the good old days
opulence poverty tolerance bigotry decadence misery black white brown gay straight queer they them he she maybe you should buy a new car
maybe then you'll be happy
a lack of empathy a dog you bury in the backyard a coworker you tell about your sex life
a desire to ignore consequence a peak over the fence to see what they have & ain't it pretty & ain't they perfect & maybe someday you'll be happy too
a kiss on the cheek a quiet glance over dinner why won't they just be quiet
the good old days back when everything was better before they started paying attention
a bus that takes you halfway home a car that parks in the middle of the street a man who says he loves you but doesn't mean it a daughter who is already smarter than her father
portraits of the artists as young men in a country that does not want them to become old men unless they stay quiet follow directions easy does it
the news at 11 let's hear from both sides the working class want jobs the working class want their kids to go to college the working class want warfare in the streets the working class want safe neighborhoods where the cops only kill people who don't look like them | drugs are bad or prescriptions are good or my daughter died of an overdose or my son is a doctor or my mother manic west 5th christmas presents in july or my father's cough drop drunken elevator conversation did you see the game or etc. etc. they get what they deserve fiends discreet charm of the bourgeoisie after these messages from coca cola
I was born in a house built on indifference four walls one roof two people no love
indifference to a truth so loud you can barely hear it yes that is your blood moving no your child won't make it out alive the good old days
indifference to a lie so quiet you cannot ignore it remember how pies cooled on summer windowsills & the milkman knew your first name but still called you ma'am such a polite boy those were the good old days & your daughter died in an alleyway because the doctor knew her first name & what would the neighbors think & oh how those birds clack their beaks & the pastor says a special prayer for wayward sheep for aborted grandchildren for loosened altar boy belt buckles & there are holy things on this earth & oh how the lord god tends his flock & oh weren't those the good old days |
god, 5am
god up to no good floating on forgiveness like some book she read
& if any arms are chariot go tell this one on the mountain there are queens to make believers of men ha
every soul congregant to make any flesh saint please stop laughing
& when god came to town she wore her winter coat & when god's hands grew cold she buried them in mittens | & when god finally made the sound of marie's harp sing so tender & falling off the bone every night ends just like this like ambrosia on your lips something holy why do they say grace every light crawls through winter's shade & your cigarettes taste like grandma smelled ha ha
& all that emptiness & all those black birds & they call this morning ha ha ha oh god give me a tree until you fill my cup & I was not baptized in the sink & I did not eat the bread you left for me | & where is that forgiveness I have begged for & why is god's blood so full of light & why don't angels sound like I thought they would & please do not stop dancing in darkest alleyway traffic with your brother to be given something so loud bring the birds high bring the sky low let the trees sing bring the strings in glory glory hallelujah oh lord come to carry me home & why is god's cat still laughing so feral so crawling so alone |
to die in hartford is to live in pretty whiskey, on pete's vacant balcony in a sunshine that is clean. to die as arches ring you through in candlelight, the women you love always running fifteen minutes late & you don't mind. a man you have never been, a mercy you will never earn, & the laundromat never closes & the bodega always carries your cigarettes & her last dress is still wrinkled on the stoop. to die in hartford is to fall in love and really mean it: answers to the question, time in the body collected, to need touch so desperately you can taste it on your lips come morning. sage of the little river, safe in tender kisses, it seems the city knows we are not meant to be alone.
someday sound someday sound for someday sound for the sake of sound for the sake of sound will be enough, our bodies ten years older,
our couch a decade softer, from the kitchen you tell me how your day was, voice echoing down the corridor, days echoing days before. a larger truth unrealized, some harder fruit near clementines, the pear that is somehow always in your hand. let me be smoke break conversations until I am grocery aisle smiles, my love I swear back then I was not quite myself. a list of all your favorite novels, a quiet terror, a mercy constant, your slender cheeks warmed by summer, the face you make when you are angry. I still remember. am I still tender, known as early morning splendor, some childhood memory that blends in with your dreams. the man I claim I'll be when I grow up: the one to make you sunday breakfast, all your dead dogs resurrected, our bodies dancing in the night sweat. when I run out of clean movement please hold my hand, I'll start the kettle if it snows. for you I'll give up smoking, grow a belly, sweep the kitchen while you are sleeping, I know it isn't easy & I know it shouldn't be. for you I'll give up
all my wandering, bathe more often, brew the coffee. scratch your back when you've awoken from bad dreams.
to die in hartford is to at last find the front yard grown with tall grass, the raptured scent of your morning breath still rattling my chest. it will go on like this forever. to live in hartford, a half-earned blessing, I promise I am glowing so close to the light. goodnight to a city baptized and forgiven, goodnight to blackbirds from the window in my kitchen, goodnight to any place that isn't here, goodnight my love your streets still echo & call that memory & call that what it really is & call my father when its over & tell him I died doing what I loved & tell him I loved hartford
while I had the chance & tell him the sound he hears each morning is the blackbirds singing me home. last night in bed beside you I heard the first song we ever danced to I heard my last breath wear your glasses I heard the night fall something classic & I swore you heard it too. a sound just like your old piano, a god for all your childhood animals, a way of giving up on all we've left behind. your heart, it shines me all my mercies, lights my way to draw the curtains, I heard the sound
for the sake of
sound for the
sake of home still rhymes with your flesh. I heard your bones still pink & glowing beneath our bed. I am sorry for the man I claim to be in poetry
but for you I swear I'll publish, quake my dust off, cut the bullshit, I promise someday I will make you proud of me. singing hymns against your new skin, window dint of bedroom movement, if you will let me be forgiven I'll bring oranges to the kitchen, I hope I die before you find out who I am. only one truth left to offer, praise it how they told me not to, cigarette with morning coffee, I have seen the holy places in the sun. if we've only got one life here it is not time enough for your company, please slow me down to squeeze the last drop from your rind. oh hartford, did you miss me? did you find me where you left me? oh hartford can't you see I missed you too? I swear to speak more if you'll hear me, to sleep more when I'm weary, to sing your name into the evening, to not say iowa each time the hurt is new.
I swear to god someday I'll love you, I promise I won't be afraid to. I'd wait forever just so I could tell you so.