Coffee

Sweet coffee stain

my mother's breath

her laugh

her smile

with friends

her giving

free

happy

loving life

coffee stains

kitchen table

small windows

neighbors

sunlight

fresh air

springtime

grass greening

tree budding

birds descending

my mother laughing

smiling

happy

sweet coffee stains

Put your ear to my lips

When I was a child

I swallowed the ocean

when I close my eyes

I stand at the ocean

I see the ocean

when I reach out my arms

I offer the ocean

I hold out the ocean

I offer you the ocean

Sunset 

Sky and ocean touch

and unfold like parting lips

to swallow the sun

Rejection, And Other Poems

     Today my application to the MA program for Creative Writing in Poetry at Northern Arizona University was rejected. A bit despondent to say the least, I am resolved to publish my poems here instead of exposing them to academic scrutiny. Like them or not, here they come.

Having killed my gods

My mind is stunned
to see I am alone

walking sleepless

desolate

I'd hitch a thousand miles

to find one who feels this

a companion in the great erosion

of the past into the future

a fine and beautiful lot

the friendships I've bought and sold

left for dead or killed outright

to appease my cowardice

how befitting this loneliness

a worry to none but me

silently sulking

unattended

melancholic

neurotic

impotent

defeated

58 Cedar Ave

 

Old things

early

forgotten

the backyard

befriending the tree

and fence corner

the garbage man

and the beach

shells

stones

hermit crabs

minnows trapped in a coffee can

the water

giving and taking away

the sun

a moment

resting on the horizon

falling

sinking

beneath the water

without me

despite me

leaving me

alone

Tecolote, a site specific, place based art installation

     The following is documentation of an installation I did for a class on site specific, place based art installation. The subject of the course was cultural and ecological genocide in Arizona. I chose to address the issues surrounding the border between Arizona and Mexico. For a review of the installation check out Dave Laplander's blog. Special thanks to my classmates, my professor Shawn Skabelund, NAU Cline Library, and Dr. Tad Theimer and the NAU Biology Department's specimen library.

Tecolote

by Eugene Brosseau, BFA

     Current political and social actions and activism surrounding the Arizona and Mexico border impact a broad spectrum of human and animal relations and ecosystems. In an effort to address real and far reaching issues surrounding our borderlands, sweeping changes have been made to Arizona and U.S. policy and practice without sufficient regard for, or protection of, the rights of the inhabitants of our borderlands. This site specific art installation is intended to provoke questions within the viewer about our place in history, the commonality of human experience, and our role in the ecology of the borderlands.

Tecolote

 

On evenings dark

a lonesome sound

betrays the heart

from amidst trees

on the banks of arroyos

calls to would be companions

eyes alive

in the murk and midnight

watch the stillness

hearing and hailing 

all homesick hunters

     In summary, the owls, being nocturnal, represent the human migrants who move across the border at night. They also represent the universality of human experience on either side of the border.The topography of Arizona shows the southern border with Mexico. The absence of topography of Mexico illustrates the out-of-sight-out-of-mind state of affairs concerning the inhabitants south of the border and their status as the "other" or the "them" in the discourse. I deliberately chose topography and scientific specimens to associate the piece with the library environment. It was my intent to create a quiet artwork that united itself to its surroundings and invited the viewer's curiosity.

Installation of my BFA exhibition "Rowing Home"

The poem that accompanied the installation:

Rowing Home

Looking back

across memory

I see my former selves

contrived, forgotten, abandoned

though they erode slowly

they still stand

watching

I peer past and glimpse a truer self

one that was

and still lives

deep within

Selected pieces were soda fired after the exhibition ended:

Approximately 32"tall

Approximately 35' tall

Approximately 24" tall

The Barnard slip gives a black metallic to bronze finish when laid on thick and a rich brown when thinner or rubbed off. It also puckers a bit after firing when applied to bisque as opposed to a smoother finish when applied to green-ware. These pieces have inspired me to continue to develop other forms with similar qualities to these. I hope this coming semester is fruitful. I graduate in May and am in the process of applying to MFA programs.

Smoldering Thoughts of a Hunter

I look with longing over my shoulder at a would be meal, but for your diligence. I and my cohorts will move off in favor of our skins. But know, our return is already imminent. The lambs are ripe and our bellies whine. How long can you watch? How many can you save from the inevitable? One may die with honor tonight while the moon smiles. Are you not a predator as well. Do you deny your need for blood? Indeed you hunt not just for meat but you take the hunter just to prove your strength, hanging his carcasses from fences and walls. Over countless lifetimes you have taken our kind. You subdue his heart to your bidding. He works for far less than he can kill himself. His mind bends to yours and he forgets his fathers' spirit. You have turned him into a beggar. I will not beg. I will not make a child of myself for your sport. My blood may be taken by your fury, my skin nailed to your wall, my flesh and bones slung over your fence to dry in the sun, tuck for the shrike. I give it to him cheerfully if I am taken while I hunt. Light and darkness chase each other and every turn of the moon brings me closer to death. It takes life to fill the emptiness. My other has young to feed and she hunts as well. Even as you guard your charge they learn our ways. They will grow to replace us and bring their hunger to your fence. How long can you watch?

Summer

This summer is tiresome. I feel it in my soul. It has dipped its red and bony finger into my consciousness and poisoned the last little mired pool. Each day is spent in excruciating emptiness and unquenchable longing. My senses are beaten and raw from the heat. I try daily to muster some deeper defiance of the relentless pressure to concede. It is vanity and fear and denial which drive me now. I pretend to be on a journey to a better place, but I know the lie too well. I know that when I wake, I will have gone no further than my own salted skin. I lay in sweat and grief groping in the blinding light for some small relief. I find none and continue. I plod on in despair of my wits. I am without hope of hope. A dessicated smattering of flesh on an endless pavement, I roast beneath the merciless sun begging the searing winds to rise and blow me away from here.

The Heart of Oceanus

Without allowing the interference of your left-brain, imagine where in the world you'd like to spend your life. I'd like to live on a farm backed up to the woods near a beach on the ocean. I can stack the hours end to end loafing in the woods or walking the beach. The wonder of the ocean consumes my mind as I wander the sands finding natural treasures among the rocks in shallow pools. I feel small and alone on the shore, staring out at the sea as it heaves forth every breath from its greatest depths to crash at my feet, daring me to step in and surrender to the underlying currents. I watch the intermingling of sand and salt and water as the wave meets the earth in clean and aromatic foam. I can almost taste the sharpness of saline as my mind is calmed and my body tingles with hope and fear. I step into the waiting surge. My feet and legs fail as I go under. My figure is dragged against the sandy bottom until it speeds past the breakers. I tumble without struggle head over foot, rolling beneath the now distant surface. I stop breathing and my eyes go dark. In a cold and comfortable sleep I am carried with great speed to the waiting heart of Oceanus. As I wake I am swallowed into warmth and beauty unlike any on land. Dark and piercing Emerald light surrounds me, and enfolds me, and penetrates me, until I am as clear and buoyant as a jellyfish. I am more water than flesh and my mind is free to be the ocean. Flowing to a rhythm greater than me, I almost disappear into the dark and endless water around me. I am carried in currents older than time. I am united to the purpose and pleasure of the sea. Fearless, careless, and helpless I am at peace in the restful and gracious heart of Oceanus. Years pass unsung and without mourning above the sea. Nameless generations are born, grow old and expire without notice or respect from the deep. I am eternal and immortal within the water. I age not and know no loss in the depths. Dawn, dusk, night and day are as one as are my dreams, awake or asleep.
Suddenly, to the sound of a crash, I wake again, my feet still planted on the sand, the water rushing over them, cool and soft and filled with bubbles. It recedes to the waiting ocean taking with it my deepest longings but leaving the sweet memory and bitter loss of true peace in the heart of Oceanus.

An Old Thirst

On the Mt. Lemmon Highway there is a place to stop and let the faster traffic pass. On the way down from a little hike along Marshall Gulch, I stopped there to explore the scene behind the guardrail. A little apprehensive, I stepped over to another world. I quickly became enthrawled with the sight before me. Rocks of granite, tan and sparkling in the midday sunlight. Manzanitas, older than any who may have walked there before me, embraced and adorned the vision with their time worn wisdom. And in the deeper shadows of the granite giants, patches of snow, blue with ambient light delighted my eyes. I paused to raise a handful of that purity to my mouth to quench an old thirst. Life beyond that hidden delight passed without notice. There, between the crown and feet of the Santa Catalina Mountains, I found a stillness amidst the exposed bones of the mountain. Caves and crevices, holes and heights, grace and gravity, all mine for no other reason than to enjoy, and record, and perhaps share.