Poetry | El-Branden Brazil

Transience

But tomorrow
In its unforeseen breeze
In transience
Brings the within within its chaos
Nothing yet known
All remains unknown
As fortune’s web spins
The unspun….

Poem & Photograph by El-Branden Brazil

The Performance

I wrote this antiwar poem 23 years ago and always wanted to make a short film of it. It’s very dark, but I hope you will appreciate it.

The Hills That Lay In Front Of Them

Beyond The Threshold

Like a breeze
my mind whispers at my passing,
“That it is neither
here nor there
if you exist or are departed.”

I quake deeply
at the thought of dying.
That I would leave
no legacy
and be bereft from living.

Has my life
been void of value,
except a cog within a system
that neither cares
nor even listens?

And in grasping
on to every pulse,
hoping for life
to continue,
I scream in silence:

“Do not forget me!
For I did have
some worth.
That my life
was not for nothing!”

But no response returns,
except a paradox of thought:
That “I” was never really here,
therefore I’ll
never disappear.

And through this realisation
I see with vision pure,
a sacred revelation,
that I would remain forever
inseparable from the stars.

“I” sighs
one final time,
whilst it dissolves
into the Cosmos,
transcending near and far
away from delusions lost.

– By El-Branden Brazil

On The Banks Of The Nile At Twilight
Photography by El-Branden Brazil

In a brief moment,
I peered out upon the stars
And knew that we were one.
That seeming separation
And that vast distance between us
Was as relevant as non-existence.
That I was never ever alone
And even “I” was mere illusion.
For in that passing, fleeting second
I realized time was just delusion.
Observing the cosmic splendor
I remained humble in ecstatic fervour.
Recognizing momentarily
To appreciate all that is sacred
And to exist without burden.

Sunrise On The Nile
Photography & Words by El-Branden Brazil

Reality Insecurities

The following two poems were written in 1998. The second poem, Alternative Realities, is an abridged version of the first. The painting, Birdman, was also created in 1998.

REALITY INSECURITIES

The Aria ascended –
Claiming Rights and Giving Honour
To my Visions and Conjectures
In all its graceful turns:
Its pitches, its rises, its fluctuating rhymes –
Bound my mind from doing painful solemn time.

And yet, how foolish is my mind
That I can think I know
Not what is out beyond the hills,
But what lies out beyond the eye?

Reality twists from back and forth
In its cylindrical, distant tangled webs,
While the River flows, tingles, ebbs
So quietly on beyond all sense.

– El-Branden Brazil

ALTERNATIVE REALITIES

Fluctuating Rhymes –
their time,
their signs.

My mind I know –
the hills,
the eye,
and forth
the webs of their deceit.

And forth and forth
the distant river soars.
And forth and forth
until there is no more.

– El-Branden Brazil

Painting by El-Branden Brazil

Forgiveness

It is true
That as I lie here
In my final throes
I recall with painful clarity
All the suffering I had caused.

It is true
That I regret so much
And if I could
I would resolve right now
Every hurt, every scold
Every pain that you endured.

It is true
My life is ending.
How I could have lived it well
If I had listened
Been a friend
Instead of selfish, mean and cruel.

It is true
It is ALL true
That I had done you great wrong
And now as I lie here dying
With you sat there
By my side.

It is true
That your kindness brings shame
As you talk and hold my hand.
For if our roles had been reversed
I doubt
I would have done the same.

It is true
Your compassion helps me
Understand all that I have missed
And in my desperate fading moments
I have this chance to make amends.

It is true
I beg forgiveness
As my body begins to fail
To which you gently inform me
That you forgave me long ago.

– By El-Branden Brazil

Photography by El-Branden Brazil

Shattered

Shattered dreams shredded
Upon a stage of broken glass:
Beneath lies crystal shards
Disintegrating on mass.
Above the dark abode of night
Hangs low upon the hearts deceased.
Talons grasping at tearing flesh.
Mauled corruption released.
Poison clawing into the minds of those deposed
In coup detat by generals.
And for a brief glance
Upon the winding frosted path,
The prisoners of life abound –
Their shackled minds executed
Like slaughtered beasts in an abattoir.
Death delivers gentle whispers
Into the torn ears of each,
And the Blind Man on a distant perch
Observes through punctured eyes.

Drawing by El-Branden Brazil

The Day Has Come

The day has come!
We knew it would.
We waited patiently.
The birds have stopped singing.
The skies have turned black;
Within the clouds we see.
What can we do on such a bleak day?
What can any of us say?
I sit,
I lift a violin for a melancholic tune,
While television continues to drivel on
And the radio tells us how to tell.
A signal bursts forth to assert
Conditions of life in the Afterworld.
Now materialistic folly observed;
Why did it take this catastrophe
To tell us what it’s really worth?
And all that we have built
Has become worthless, pointless, short of Spirit;
An aimless hording of all we value;
A failing the cause of our reckoning.
And now it’s here upon us bare –
The Inevitable Day:
The Foresight of Aeons.
The loss of one is always startling;
The loss of all is desperately overwhelming.
The cultural ego of our race
Broken, torn and to be erased.
Nothing can save us –
Nothing will,

While our minds visualise their final resting place.

– El-Branden Brazil