Will Brown Blues

By Wesley Houp

Old injury to your soul
filled your brain with blood,
and pressure forced you out,
a refugee of the great mindfuck.
You were wandering outside
your head when I met you,
and you offered your first
awful poems, full of words
we learn reading Elliot or Pound.
From fifteen pages I found one word,
something functional like “from,”
and suggested starting over again
from there—to get to somewhere else.
So you composed thirty sonnets
that carried a voice like a tsunami.
I loaned you an anthology
of ancient Chinese verse.
Months later you fled
the rebellion of your life,
following your brother into the earth.
Now I only think I catch glimpses
between the years of those T’ang poets
whose wine you stole
from my little book,
wondering what way from here?