Sample Poems by Kurt Brown
Primordial Soup
Sunlight on dry mud?
A drop of thickened water?
You might stare at one spot for eons
and never see it stir.
But there, in the corner of your eye,
at the edge of vision—
something swims into view,
already willful
and wriggling like a baby.
But from Where? And by Who?
Gulp
a little fish
swallowed by a bigger fish,
who’s swallowed by a bigger fish,
who’s swallowed by an even bigger fish...
This could go on forever
because the universe is endless.
But what of its opposite:
big fish vomits up a smaller fish,
who vomits up a smaller fish,
who vomits up an even
smaller fish...
Until eventually, there’s nothing.
Nothing out there; nothing in here.
But the fish swim left, the fish swim right—
nothing swallowing nothing.
Fables from the Ark
No one paid much attention to Noah,
that cockalorum at the ship’s helm.
After all: we were in this together.
Pair by pair, we huddled in the hold
while the bow pitched
and breakers rolled.
Once, a cry of anquish split the air,
and the smell of bodies,
and the reek of fear.
But the waves lapsed and sunlight shone.
And it wasn’t the crow who spotted land.
Nor what the circling dove found.
It was the chicken, the sordid chicken
who first jumped ship
and scratched the ground.