Look Through Mine Eyes, O Brother

Will Franks 🌊
2 min readMar 31, 2024

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Lapps Around A Fire – Wikimedia Commons

Look through mine eyes, O brother,

for they are yours

as I am yours.

Live through my life, O brother,

I live it for you

I give it to you –

the sunset and the questions

if you’ll have them.

If you’ll have me, O brother,

if you’ll keep me

close

and wild

and secret.

Breathe into mine, O brother,

breathe heart into heart

into air

into islands

of immovable love.

Go down to the rocky wash

where worlds become spaces

where chants come alive

and weave around you

in city street mantras singing

HO!

Where bread-bark bird-chips

tumble

from open containers

into open laughing air

and lines are drawn

in invisible ink

along your face

on long-mapped contours

and canals

of desperation and devotion

and devilspawn.

Crested (blue),

rested (few)

tested (anew),

a

wheezing warming world

coughs itself into caffeinated

semi-consciousness

semilight, semidark,

nut top brown sugar

beat breasted,

manifested,

for you and by you

and for whom?

And for whence?

And foregone,

all hope of conclusion

and all desire for it.

And lovelost,

all aspiration to become

other than you are.

And tired loosened

slackjaw mornings

just ain’t what they used to be

and would you want that anyway my

dear dear brother

and wildman

and crow

and blackfoot

and forest whisk

and snowbleat

and farmhand

and father sun of all?

O Sing the One I like

my brother

in high E,

in arrival register,

in arrested ecstasis

upon the pouring steps

of reverie

of rebellion

of remedy to heartborne ills.

Melodious antidote,

ceremonious,

persimmon,

simonious,

and peter

my

dear dear

brothers

in the garden

with him

now

and always

and forever.

Night garden!

Praying morning

all open and

blest

and free!

A pure and perfect dawn.

A passing thought,

and over heads

the dancing birds.

Priestly gaze upon me

within me and all and sundry,

in satellite sunbeams

and metal bracing huffsters

and the chic

and sweetly laid tables

of your heart,

my love,

my king,

my fierce and fearsome

kin.

And overhead?

The dancing.

The birds and the dancing

and the pure and perfect dawn.

If you will dream of me, O brother,

I will be singing

in the sunlight

on a Chicago street corner

lost and alone

and free in the crystal ocean

of unexcelled

inexhaustible

and most ineffably excellent

friendship.

The whole of the path!

The path of the whole!

Our criminal currency of outrageous

and unreasonable abundance!

Joy of joys!

Grief of griefs!

Land of lyrical luminaries

we walk together,

green and glistening.

O mine O pilgrim

O hers O yours

O this

O these

cracked and ringing feet

bells of heaven

touching earth

touching life

touching truth.

Keep dreaming

my brother

and I’ll meet you on the subway

and it will all be impossibly simple,

deliciously easy

once again.

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