The Journey Thus Far: Selected Poems 2014-2021

By Alan Brown

The Journey Thus Far is Mr. Brown's second book and the first of his poetic work. The subject matter varying in time as well as in space reflects his life experience; his education, BA in geography; and his pure imagination. The early work is of recollections and experiences dating back to the 1960s. Even though written at a later date, all the poems in the book are composed between the years 2014 and 2021.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Newman Springs Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jan 26, 2023
• ISBN: 9781684981502

Alan Brown

Alan Brown grew up in the suburbs of Kansas City and graduated from Shawnee Mission East High School in 1973 and Avila University in 1979. Now He lives in a suburb of St. Louis, MO with my wife and three daughters. He also has four sons that are grown and living outside the home. He enjoys writing about experiences he had growing up, examining the fantastical side, the dark side of a person’s natural fears. All of his books are based on a reality in his life. He is a fan of Alfred Hitchcock. Like his stories, Alan Brown’s will conclude with a twist, something he hope will take the reader by surprise.

Book preview

The Journey Thus Far

Selected Poems

2014–2021

ALAN BROWN

Copyright © 2022 Alan Brown

All rights reserved

First Edition

NEWMAN SPRINGS PUBLISHING

320 Broad Street

Red Bank, NJ 07701

First originally published by Newman Springs Publishing 2022

ISBN 978-1-68498-149-6 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-68498-150-2 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

For May Murai Brown whose generosity made this possible

Contents

Self-Assessment

Part I: Early Poems 2014–2017

The North Coast

Simple Stream

Lake at the End of the World

Glacial Till, Esker, and Moraine

Late Fall Day

Just Right Poem

Big Sur

Pate Valley

Night Life

Curriculum Vitae

Quiet Musings

Somewhere Near Esalen

Pilgrimage

Hot Plate Hotels

City Lights

Back in the City

On Being a Poor Poet

Hotel Deluxe

Bus Station

Portland

France (2017)

It

Bisous

Chill Day in Paris

The Invisible Man

Of Baking Bread and Cinnamon

Are We There Yet

The Invitation

Les Jardins des Mortes

Autumn in Paris

Winter

Dog Owners of Tangier

Changing Seasons

Part II: Poems 2018–2019

Bakersfield

Do Writers Drink

Cat Named Arman

Old Tursolini

Player Plano

Mu

Matterhorn Peak

Winter

Smelling of Snow

Pas de Deux

Fog

Clouds

Light

The Ginger Farmer or Why I Write

Scenes From a Dark Armchair

Revolutions of 1848

A Little Thing I Like to Call Night Train and Bum Wine

Through the Dream Wall

Millennium

Travel Time

The Passage

Old Home Cordilleras

Surfing

Locomotive Trochanter

Playing Doctor

Gerry Mulligan (Night Lights)

Analog Man

Part III: Poems 2020–2021

Slow-Motion Tricycle

By the Light of Dawn

Saturnalia of Milan

Blackened Grosses

In a Darkened Café

Lady of the Dark Hours

Puliklah

X-ray Specs

Ashoka Farewell #1 and #2

Our Daily Bread

Southern Gothic

The Gates of Amduat

Blessed Are the Meek

The Dangerous Road

Birds Last Flight

Love Pussy

First Verse

Cut Up-Crack Up

Time Passes

Keeps

For You to Decide

The Poet

Border City

Burma Shave

In Some Other Lifetime

Tanka

Flop on Main Street

Buk

Landscapes

How I Love

Unfinished and Haiku

A Young Indian Woman

One Day

The Lost Poet

Le Petit Mort

The Past

He Just Died

Waking to Nightmare

Lines Sans Lines

Some Nights

Déjà vu

The Lock of Karma

The Sea of Cythera

Typewriter

Self-Assessment

So hell, I sez to myself; spent time on the road, up, down, back and forth, the length and breadth of California; hiked miles upon miles in the range of light; been to the Isles of Sandwich; and visited Japan and Korea, where I discovered the dharma. Became a bum and went to France and still considered myself to be poorly travelled. Read lots and lots of books and still feel as though I’m poorly read. Did stoop labor ’long side migrant Mexican workers, band packing strawberries in Watsonville and daffodils for .14 a bunch in the frozen fields of Arcata Bottoms, worked in a lumber mill alongside crackers from Arkansas, self-proclaimed mill oakies and proud of the fact, and with Hupas straight offa the res. Somewhere along the line, I even managed to finish college and spend a few semesters in grad school. Been unemployed at various times and places, mostly by choice, and underemployed most of the rest. Neither proud nor ashamed of the fact. Like what a high school teacher told me long ago that if I did not change my ways and apply myself (that was the term that they used), and he was right. I did end up working for people not as intelligent as myself but far more ambitious. Oh, well. Never made much more than twenty-five thousand any one year and was never accused of being a go-getter or an overachiever. Got a book in print, a couple more in the incubator, and a whole slew of poetry and short stories and essays. Women and small animals seem to like me well enough, and I get along with most though I have trouble abiding the willfully ignorant and bigots of any stripe. Worlds gotten too small and crowded an’ life too short for that kind of shit.

PART I

Early Poems 2014–2017

The North Coast

The north coast

called by some the lost coast

Where Cape Mendocino thrusts its craggy eminences

into the chill waters of the North Pacific Sea

Long a beacon for mariners

since the days of the Manila galleons

laden with plunder

bound for the coffers of Isabella

Graveyard of ships that felt its’ rocks in the gloaming

or foggy day

or blown by storms

Their wooden bones littering the bottom

along with the souls of those who sailed them

The ocean surrounding open to every kind of maelstrom

and tempest conjured in the realm of the sea

Home to many large and hungry things

that swim in the dim-dark waters

What lies below

gold or the restless spirits of the drowned

And what lurks in the fastness of the surrounding heights

of the Kings Range and surrounding drainages

Thrust from the sea by tectonic cataclysms

eons ago

There on that long unbroken beach north of Shelter Cove

what of the semisecret, semi-mysto surf spot

nestled in the lee of the cape

where the winds blow offshore

and waves break beneath towering cliffs

amid broken headlands of jagged rocks

where sea otters lounge in the offshore kelp

a