Brother Poems | Poemist

Popular Brother Poems

We Refugees

by Benjamin Zephaniah

I come from a musical place
Where they shoot me for my song
And my brother has been tortured
By my brother in my land.

I come from a beautiful place
Where they hate my shade of skin
They don't like the way I pray
And they ban free poetry.

......

The Cinnamon Peeler

by Michael Ondaatje

If I were a cinnamon peeler
I would ride your bed
And leave the yellow bark dust
On your pillow.

Your breasts and shoulders would reek
You could never walk through markets
without the profession of my fingers
floating over you. The blind would
stumble certain of whom they approached

......

Ballad Of The Banished And Returning Count

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

OH, enter old minstrel, thou time-honour'd one!
We children are here in the hall all alone,

The portals we straightway will bar.
Our mother is praying, our father is gone

To the forest, on wolves to make war.
Oh sing us a ballad, the tale then repeat,

'Till brother and I learn it right;

......

I'M Explaining A Few Things

by Pablo Neruda

You are going to ask: and where are the lilacs?
and the poppy-petalled metaphysics?
and the rain repeatedly spattering
its words and drilling them full
of apertures and birds?
I'll tell you all the news.

I lived in a suburb,
a suburb of Madrid, with bells,
and clocks, and trees.

......

Bagpipe Music

by Louis Macneice

It's no go the merrygoround, it's no go the rickshaw,
All we want is a limousine and a ticket for the peepshow.
Their knickers are made of crepe-de-chine, their shoes are made of python,
Their halls are lined with tiger rugs and their walls with head of bison.

John MacDonald found a corpse, put it under the sofa,
Waited till it came to life and hit it with a poker,
Sold its eyes for souvenirs, sold its blood for whiskey,
Kept its bones for dumbbells to use when he was fifty.

......

Recent Brother Poems

Catullus Translations by Michael R. Burch

by Michael R. Burch

CATULLUS TRANSLATIONS

Catullus CI aka Carmina 101: “His Brother’s Burial”
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
Through many lands and over many seas
I have journeyed, brother, to these wretched rites,
to this final acclamation of the dead ...
and to speak — however ineffectually — to your voiceless ashes

......

My Cute Little Brother

by Somali Mukherjee

My cute little brother,
Full of pristine purity,
Glows amidst people other,
Full of divine sanctity.

Stuffed with pure love,
Filled with intimate innocence,
Like an angel from above,
He spreads his milky essence.

......

A Man Is More Than Just Flesh and Bone

by Oscar Auliq-Ice

A man is like a tree, tall and strong,
With branches reaching up to the sky.
His roots run deep, he's been here so long,
And he stands firm when the winds pass by.

His trunk is solid, his bark so rough,
But he's gentle too, like a soft breeze.
He may seem tough, but he's filled with love,
And his heart beats with the greatest ease.

......

Brother

by Tash Jane

Cowardly brother, I think I've found the answer
But while you've been holding the question,
You think you're an actor

Does your heart still yearn?
To know what went wrong
Fucked up kids
My heart's just beating along

I've looked through the dirty glass,

......

Steve

by Evelyn Judy Buehler

The definitive nice guy and so friendly;
Slow to burn, he coasts life easily.
A true gentleman of the first order;
And free as bluebirds on the Spanish border!

He's my brother; I have no other;
First sunbeam of my mother.
A natural born comedian to be exact,
Though not many are aware of that fact.

......