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Budger of history Brake of time You Bomb
Toy of universe Grandest of all snatched sky I cannot hate you
Do I hate the mischievous thunderbolt the jawbone of an ass
The bumpy club of One Million B.C. the mace the flail the axe
Catapult Da Vinci tomahawk Cochise flintlock Kidd dagger Rathbone
Ah and the sad desparate gun of Verlaine Pushkin Dillinger Bogart
And hath not St. Michael a burning sword St. George a lance David a sling
Bomb you are as cruel as man makes you and you’re no crueller than cancer
All Man hates you they’d rather die by car-crash lightning drowning
Falling off a roof electric-chair heart-attack old age old age O Bomb
They’d rather die by anything but you Death’s finger is free-lance
Not up to man whether you boom or not Death has long since distributed its
categorical blue I sing thee Bomb Death’s extravagance Death’s jubilee
Gem of Death’s supremest blue The flyer will crash his death will differ
with the climbor who’ll fall to die by cobra is not to die by bad pork
Some die by swamp some by sea and some by the bushy-haired man in the night
O there are deaths like witches of Arc Scarey deaths like Boris Karloff
No-feeling deaths like birth-death sadless deaths like old pain Bowery
Abandoned deaths like Capital Punishment stately deaths like senators
And unthinkable deaths like Harpo Marx girls on Vogue covers my own
I do not know just how horrible Bombdeath is I can only imagine
Yet no other death I know has so laughable a preview I scope
a city New York City streaming starkeyed subway shelter
Scores and scores A fumble of humanity High heels bend
Hats whelming away Youth forgetting their combs
Ladies not knowing what to do with their shopping bags
Unperturbed gum machines Yet dangerous 3rd rail
Ritz Brothers from the Bronx caught in the A train
The smiling Schenley poster will always smile
Impish death Satyr Bomb Bombdeath
Turtles exploding over Istanbul
The jaguar’s flying foot
soon to sink in arctic snow
Penguins plunged against the Sphinx
The top of the Empire state
arrowed in a broccoli field in Sicily
Eiffel shaped like a C in Magnolia Gardens
St. Sophia peeling over Sudan
O athletic Death Sportive Bomb
the temples of ancient times
their grand ruin ceased
Electrons Protons Neutrons
gathering Hersperean hair
walking the dolorous gulf of Arcady
joining marble helmsmen
entering the final ampitheater
with a hymnody feeling of all Troys
heralding cypressean torches
racing plumes and banners
and yet knowing Homer with a step of grace
Lo the visiting team of Present
the home team of Past
Lyre and tube together joined
Hark the hotdog soda olive grape
gala galaxy robed and uniformed
commissary O the happy stands
Ethereal root and cheer and boo
The billioned all-time attendance
The Zeusian pandemonium
Hermes racing Owens
The Spitball of Buddha
Christ striking out
Luther stealing third
Planeterium Death Hosannah Bomb
Gush the final rose O Spring Bomb
Come with thy gown of dynamite green
unmenace Nature’s inviolate eye
Before you the wimpled Past
behind you the hallooing Future O Bomb
Bound in the grassy clarion air
like the fox of the tally-ho
thy field the universe thy hedge the geo
Leap Bomb bound Bomb frolic zig and zag
The stars a swarm of bees in thy binging bag
Stick angels on your jubilee feet
wheels of rainlight on your bunky seat
You are due and behold you are due
and the heavens are with you
hosanna incalescent glorious liaison
BOMB O havoc antiphony molten cleft BOOM
Bomb mark infinity a sudden furnace
spread thy multitudinous encompassed Sweep
set forth awful agenda
Carrion stars charnel planets carcass elements
Corpse the universe tee-hee finger-in-the-mouth hop
over its long long dead Nor
From thy nimbled matted spastic eye
exhaust deluges of celestial ghouls
From thy appellational womb
spew birth-gusts of of great worms
Rip open your belly Bomb
from your belly outflock vulturic salutations
Battle forth your spangled hyena finger stumps
along the brink of Paradise
O Bomb O final Pied Piper
both sun and firefly behind your shock waltz
God abandoned mock-nude
beneath His thin false-talc’s apocalypse
He cannot hear thy flute’s
happy-the-day profanations
He is spilled deaf into the Silencer’s warty ear
His Kingdom an eternity of crude wax
Clogged clarions untrumpet Him
Sealed angels unsing Him
A thunderless God A dead God
O Bomb thy BOOM His tomb
That I lean forward on a desk of science
an astrologer dabbling in dragon prose
half-smart about wars bombs especially bombs
That I am unable to hate what is necessary to love
That I can’t exist in a world that consents
a child in a park a man dying in an electric-chair
That I am able to laugh at all things
all that I know and do not know thus to conceal my pain
That I say I am a poet and therefore love all man
knowing my words to be the acquainted prophecy of all men
and my unwords no less an acquaintanceship
That I am manifold
a man pursuing the big lies of gold
or a poet roaming in bright ashes
or that which I imagine myself to be
a shark-toothed sleep a man-eater of dreams
I need not then be all-smart about bombs
Happily so for if I felt bombs were caterpillars
I’d doubt not they’d become butterflies
There is a hell for bombs
They’re there I see them there
They sit in bits and sing songs
mostly German songs
And two very long American songs
and they wish there were more songs
especially Russian and Chinese songs
and some more very long American songs
Poor little Bomb that’ll never be
an Eskimo song I love thee
I want to put a lollipop
in thy furcal mouth
A wig of Goldilocks on thy baldy bean
and have you skip with me Hansel and Gretel
along the Hollywoodian screen
O Bomb in which all lovely things
moral and physical anxiously participate
O fairylike plucked from the
grandest universe tree
O piece of heaven which gives
both mountain and anthill a sun
I am standing before your fantastic lily door
I bring you Midgardian roses Arcadian musk
Reputed cosmetics from the girls of heaven
Welcome me fear not thy opened door
nor thy cold ghost’s grey memory
nor the pimps of indefinite weather
their cruel terrestial thaw
Oppenheimer is seated
in the dark pocket of Light
Fermi is dry in Death’s Mozambique
Einstein his mythmouth
a barnacled wreath on the moon-squid’s head
Let me in Bomb rise from that pregnant-rat corner
nor fear the raised-broom nations of the world
O Bomb I love you
I want to kiss your clank eat your boom
You are a paean an acme of scream
a lyric hat of Mister Thunder
O resound thy tanky knees
BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM
BOOM ye skies and BOOM ye suns
BOOM BOOM ye moons ye stars BOOM
nights ye BOOM ye days ye BOOM
BOOM BOOM ye winds ye clouds ye rains
go BANG ye lakes ye oceans BING
Barracuda BOOM and cougar BOOM
Ubangi BOOM orangutang
BING BANG BONG BOOM bee bear baboon
ye BANG ye BONG ye BING
the tail the fin the wing
Yes Yes into our midst a bomb will fall
Flowers will leap in joy their roots aching
Fields will kneel proud beneath the halleluyahs of the wind
Pinkbombs will blossom Elkbombs will perk their ears
Ah many a bomb that day will awe the bird a gentle look
Yet not enough to say a bomb will fall
or even contend celestial fire goes out
Know that the earth will madonna the Bomb
that in the hearts of men to come more bombs will be born
magisterial bombs wrapped in ermine all beautiful
and they’ll sit plunk on earth’s grumpy empires
fierce with moustaches of gold

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Sweet little darling
Sipping tea from her cup
Deep thoughts on her rocking chair
Nose stuck in a Dickinson book
Style in her fingertips
Turning page after page
Wrapped up in forever
Coddling lukewarm memories
Counting grandchildren and lost ones
Guided by an inward candle
Unforgettable and refreshing

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She blatantly ignored the gun shots in the forest of her mind

She stumbled across the hidden bridge squeezing a bottle of time

She carried a picture of temptations with her lips high and dry

She drank from the inkwell of resistance to justify her words

She dropped to her tattered knees shouting “Forgive me”

She fumbled for a candle to see her shadows in the dark

She carved out a statue to remind her of her past

She spoke to the flames of the king in a delicate language

She leaned on the shoulders that could carry her forever more

She stared into the mirror for hours recognizing her flaws

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I read this book in paperback. This is a unsolicited review.

What I Loved:
Braeden Michaels is another one of my favorite poets. He is a master at creating imagery with his varied and vivid lines. Somehow he combines these images to create a scene and that scene, if we allow it, gives us a view deeper into our own humanity.

He writes with such depth and his lines make you really think about who we are as humans and our place in this world, our emotions, and our different perspectives. I find that I can read nearly every piece over and over, each time walking away with more meaning than the time before.

I also appreciate his creativity and his titles are dynamite. Things like “Coughing Up a Smirk”, “Psychobabble”, “Tangled Snowflake”, “Marmalade Boots”, and “The Blush Vertebrae”… how does he come up with these names??

I didn’t find a single grammatical error or misspelling and that made me very happy (because if you know me at all, it is that those are pet-peeves of mine). Also, the paperback quality was very good. A nice size in your hand, great overall length, and the front cover art for me was great.

What I Didn’t:
I honestly have nothing negative to say about this book. It now happily sits on my shelf to be read again and again.

My Overall Score:
5 stars – This book is exactly what I want from a book of poetry. Excellent length, quality writing, professional and engaging cover. Worth every penny and minute invested.

Highly recommended for those who enjoy unique modern poetry that makes you think and feel.

Check out where “The Raven’s Poison” is available! The review can be found on Amazon.

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I drank rain from a malevolent cup
and I couldn’t touch the terror in the wind
I distinctly felt the extinction in the air
and the intruders inside me left fingerprints
I anticipated the rumblings, jitters, and
the despair to rest in my esophagus

I stood in the fog seven miles away from
the shadows and the vile from the hill
I swallowed ignorance with a blend of
dismay, concern and suspicion
I fell before the behemoth’s sins and
I stared at the tarnished wisdom

I inhaled the scent of darkness
and I could feel the breeze of agony
I witnessed my logic, quirks, and talking
Skeleton disappear into the clouds
I was consumed by crisis oriented faith,
misplaced psychology, and charades

I stared at the dementia with my lip
quivering and with the aftertaste of sorrow
I stood six feet apart from the quicksand
and the rattle swimming in the sea of chaos
I severed the gospel from my identity
and I muttered words of inadequacy

I stepped on the carousel of deception
and shrugged off human decency
I became one with the vile from the hill
and detested the color of my pupils
I was obsessed by the anxiety and the
venom in my stomach turned into stone

I was crushed by my weaknesses
and the stench of loneliness dispersed
I devoured the indecisions, complexity,
and the tears in my eyes evaporated
I despised the grave of my haunting past
and ignored the road to the sunrise

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A part of me is mangled
A part of me is incarcerated
A part of me has no meaning

A part of me is ruptured
A part of me is poisonous
A part of me has fragments

A part of me is dismembered
A part of me is misrepresented
A part of me has a disease

A part of me is severed
A part of me is slivered
A part of me has lived in a smog

A part of me is a siren
A part of me is annilihated
A part of me has lost color

A part of me is ruptured
A part of me is an invisible soul
A part of me has died on Mangled Iron Lane

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⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I am left with an odd sense of warmth after reading “The Raven’s Poison”, Collected Poems, by Braeden Michaels. Each poem flows beautifully into the next and the sections are well executed. Michaels has a brilliant ability to invoke each of your senses with his thought provoking words. His creative mind keeps you engaged and enthralled throughout the entire book. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this collection. I am enthusiastic about future published work from this writer.

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She’s dressed in compromise

with a splash of anaesthesia

Lost in the scars

She’s wreaking ruins

with a touch of benevolence

Tangled up in a mess

She’s covered up in scotch

with a hint of animalism

Disoriented in the haze

She’s cleansed in affection

with a pinch of pandemonium

Invisible to the

She’s laced in anarchy

with a shot of jangle and bedlam

Slipping in oblivion

She’s cauterizing affection

with roses in her palms

Scatterbrained colors

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Trembling demographics

Stretched out fuzzy landscapes

Distorted mountains clench

Sounds desensitized and flutter

A mangled government howls

Ministers pleading with statues

Arguments swing from branch

to branch like a diabolical monkey

Sentiments sealed in a box

Hungover debates swallowing

OxyContin and sleeping pills

Insomniacs chatting with graffiti

between Sinister Lane and 5th Street

Cigarette smoke flies like a bird

and shadows dance with loneliness

Laughter turns stale like a cracker

Cynics and pessimists fall in love

Innocence is submerged in flames

A place of cracks and haze

Wanderers and drifters circle

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Under her breath she uttered “Life is as beautiful as a forehead kiss”
Joy dances like a ballerina on her spellbinding tongue
She squeezed tea parties with her doll Delilah with her artistry
Quietly adoring her childhood books on the shelf from the tallest to the shortest
She painted love with the ocean with her steady hand on her prized canvas
Gazing at her innocent imagination
Memorized the pattern and pastel colors of her quilt
In a whisper she mumbled “Beauty is inside, not in the eye of the beholder”
Climbing inside her mellow perception
She glided across the beige carpet with an ornament of a smile
A sphere filled with crayons, lite bright, easy bake oven, and ballroom dresses
Cherishing the extraordinary recollection,
Embracing the collage of photographs in her heart
Drops fall to the floor as she glances at a hollow room on Wildfire Lane