poem | 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

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

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.

– El-Branden Brazil
Copyright 9th. September, 2002 –

Drawing by El-Branden Brazil

To Love

To be mindful of others

To treasure, respect and worship others:
The distant brothers and sisters
We pass everyday.

Each and everyone of them
A story at play
Of love and disappointments,
Hopes and pleasures,
Hardship and despair.

They, like you,
Have experienced life:
The love of parenthood,
The love of feeling praised.
The love found in suffering.
The love of losing ones.

We, as humans, just want to breathe,
And look out upon the stars,

Love,

Love those we bring to bear.

Love those who inevitably cross the threshold.

Be sacred in experiencing
Our brief moment of existence
Love, love, love…
Because that is All
And nothing more.

Words by El-Branden Brazil

Photography by El-Branden Brazil

The Dead Man’s Mass

The light of Twilight opened:
Bruised in orange inclination
Below a dark blue cascade
Of starlit elevation.
He lay down to ponder
Upon the complex folly of descent
And all the foolish hooded lies
That embraced all human incident.
His breast released a fearful sigh –
Exasperating all clear smoke
From deep within his ancient lungs
And pushed out from hidden throat.
And his eyes became wide open –
Gasping at the visual splendour
In every moment passing on,
As life evaporated yonder.
His memories caught in bloodied fever
And seeping from every pore;
He felt ecstatic recollection
For what had been before.
And no where had this Dead Man seen,
The golden sunrise of the Night –
Transcending high in earnest dream
And drowning him in Holy rite.
And vanished by forsaken moment,
Reality’s gates were closed –
Elyseum of ancient myth constructed
While his abstract mind composed.