Order

Young, the four French girls grew otherwise
and were submerged by time. Four French girls—
the young always seem to keep the fashion,
hold crushes against history’s lament.
Girls: the four, young French defined
it in a magical way that made the banks
close early. French, the four young girls
gave off an air of propriety consistent
of vigil for fathers lost at sea. Girls, the French
young found their way up the staircase
where other contents would be their context.
The four French girls, when they were young,
called out all the silent letters.

-Jason Braun

Communiqué

When the curfew came down
in Paris only the fools and old folk
stayed to watch the gun-smoke action
sequence, the melting gold, the neon
street fight, and lip-smack of flesh.
The intergalactic ash changed shop-
keepers into bandits looting blood,
marrow, and everything in-between.
Foolish, I thought a repeating rifle
from the forties and two boxes
full of shells would keep me safe
and warm. Dawn came again without
the sound twenty tanks should make.
I crept and crawled through rotting
men and fruit for food and drink.
I was bitten, and killed him, and now
turning, say goodbye. This is not
a good year for red wine.

-Jason Braun

2AM Voodoo

Fighting a war on two fronts,
its unwise to spend time
watching Zombie movies
when you’ve got a case
of the common cold.
Growing sluggish, a fever
takes hold. Sweat marks
your ragged clothes.
Breathing through you open
mouth and dragging one foot
into the pharmacy. They keep
the distance of a pitchfork
between their cold hearts and you.

-Jason Braun

Take Backs

This is why we want time
travel. Don’t pay attention.
We’ll do it over. Push the leaves
back into the tree branches.
Button up a girl’s blouse
then light a cigarette. Watch
the bully pay the weakling
to keep his lunch.

-Jason Braun

Grandfather Watching Planet of the Apes

Space makes a man lonely, Charlton Heston
told me this, hours past midnight. Then I remembered
my grandfather loved this man. He could
watch Heston crash-land into lakes all day,
pausing and shaking his fist at the nomads who stole
his clothes. That year he bought me a membership
to the junior RNA. I liked to shoot birds and cans.
I learned animals were machines for making meat.
My grandfather loved America, penicillin,
the man on the moon, and the production of heat
only visible as steam inside a crane’s soiled, cold cab.
He knew man makes a desert by in putting green paradise
and too much time. He taught me to make paper airplanes,
mentioning Bernoulli’s principle of lift. His blood
pressure rose. He watched and whished to be Heston,
running off with a girl who couldn’t speak, a gun
and a fresh horse with nowhere to go.

-Jason Braun

Attraction

A sink says what it does
when its working. A trapdoor
at the bottom of a pool
answers the question
your searching foot has been
asking. This is a how a banana
peel becomes a murder weapon.
Old men do not cannon ball,
they consult their machines
blinking red light for gravity’s
call and their response in good-
byes ends with the holler for dirt.

-Jason Braun

Barkeep

The monkey’s not the problem,
I told her. It’s the smoking.
Doesn’t matter what carnival
you’re coming from, Rio’s down
the road, you can smoke there.
She took the cigarette and pulled a trick
most of the boys at the bar had seen
in a book. She blew rings around
the room the rest of the week,
streets went bare as a ghost town.
All the boys at the bar, titling
upward, smoke in their nostrils,
with their heads in the clouds.

-Jason Braun

Bedtime Stories

When the cyborgs tell
bedtime stories they telescope
into the little one’s earpiece,
set a low tune to turning
slowly between music
box and modem. They speak
in the imitation of a tremble
about the last boy without
enhancement. He was a baby
when the shipwreck happened.
Both parents tried to fly,
swim, signal and each sunk
separately. Startled by the sound
of drones, he always hid
from passing ships. At fifteen
he started working wood and stone.
Later in the moonlight, he listened
to the birds and began tooling
a new language in which the first
word was goodnight.

-Jason Braun