harbingers, by Tony Brewer

Got a Box Full of Letters, photography by Charity Heggestad (USA). 2015.

harbingers

T concerned for U
V W-X
riffed no notice plucked
from farm of cube

signs dark days had 
come Z peering over partition 
hoping alphabet coup

Orwell said of the work

[ R E D A C T E D ]

& now mad scramble
N’s in with 2’s & U’s
doubled over into T’s sector

labial glubs & fricative
grit of drowning sailors
doomed aboard capsized ships

fled as emptiness floods
each tight compartment
none part of today’s
tomorrow’s stenciled crate

Whole lotta H C J K 3 
left on everyone’s mind
& What can be spelt
without U’s
V’s W’s X

How language dies & dies
& dies again entombed
in letter setter’s
inconvenient box lost

Ask hard
questions close eyes
camera moves in hear
hard answers cringe

while the other side
faces to the floor hide
single U V W-X

Tony Brewer

This poem was first published in Bobo Books: 1.1.1: Vol. 2. 2017.

Tony Brewer is chair of the Writers Guild at Bloomington, Indiana; executive director of the Spoken Word Stage at the 4th Street Festival; festival director of Slam Camp at Indiana University; and one-fourth of the performance troupe Reservoir Dogwoods. He was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2016 and he has 3 books: Hot Type Cold Read (Chatter House Press), Little Glove in a Big Hand (Plan B Press), and The Great American Scapegoat (self-published).