Anselm Brocki
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Brocki

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ANSELM BROCKI made his TVBR debut in Issue #13: Vol. V, No. 3—Superstition/Supernatural. In the past nine years, has had more than 600 poems accepted by over 380 publications, including The Amherst Review, Maryland Poetry Review, Piedmont Literary Review, and Walt’s Corner. In 1996, Alpha Beat Press published his first book of poetry, Mornings at the All-Nite. He has been a high school teacher, a senior editor at Houghton Mifflin, and an editorial coordinator for the Los Angeles City Schools. He currently serves as an editing and copyrighting consultant.

Cynicism / Anselm Brocki

Good aside, at this point
after the birth of earth,
if I were the universe,
I’d be afraid of us, too,
and make us prisoners
of time and ability.
I’d keep my ways
almost unknowable,
except for a burst
of sunrise here
and an occasional
green mountain in the mist there
to slow the bright-eyed beasts
because our record
in Manchuria, Rome, and Dachau
speaks for itself
and who knows how many
other records speak
knife, hate, brutality
on clipper ships, at Olduvai,
on dark street corners,
in condominiums,
and in more private places.

After Thought / Anselm Brocki

If I were the chemicals
combining to find the why
of myself, earth, and stars
in an emerald ocean
tugged by moon,
white-capped by wind,
sparkled by sun,
I too would become
graceful kelp, coelacanths,
oaks, whales, brown bears,
robins, Neanderthals,
Chinese, Bantus, and Swedes—
taking any shape
and stunning colors
I could to know.

Surmising / Anselm Brocki

Something was going on in 1934
between the Greek, who owned
the Italian restaurant up on Mission,
and my gorgeous red-haired mother,
or why did she send my sister and me
alone to his restaurant so often
for free dinners? Always the daily
special—spaghetti, linguini, lasagna,
but never chops, steak, or chicken
cacciatore—served to us in a booth
with curtains, which we never drew,
never carried on, but ate the specials
like starvelings, and always made
a production out of thanking
his solemn wife at the cash register,
who wore a black dress to match her hair,
until one day she stopped us
from coming in the front door
with a blast of Greek anger.

My sister said he was just a nice man
giving free meals to a couple of hungry
kids, and his wife got tired of his handouts.
As a girl and two years older, she should
have been more suspicious, like me.