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Best Poems Written by Joe Brazeau

Below are the all-time best Joe Brazeau poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

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Details | Joe Brazeau Poem

An Ocean

find blue summer in the undulating
fans of the kelp forests’ 
kelly green
swirl aquamarine waters 
lemon tangs and 
silvery blue angelfish dart, 
dive disappear in a cloud 
of color near
fluffy white sand bottom

the jet black stingray floats 
like a kite 
ripples ruffles flips and fusses
stops abruptly to let the
sand grains settle over wings
burying all but two round pearly
black eyes
ever observant 
en garde 

sunny red and vivid yellow
clownfish mingle kiss and 
swish within the caressing
tentacles of the purple sea
anemones their symbiosis
on display 

lit by golden shafts of 
sunlight stabbing thirty and
forty feet angled through
the feathery kelp limbs

amber seahorses buck and rock
with the ocean waves 
and currents of deeper cooler
waters flowing like underwater
rivers through the warm 
buoyant waters of the
colorful kelp

Corals in colors carefully 
chosen by Poseidon for their
elements of smiles, giggles 
and warm hardy laughter

sea cucumbers decorate 
the sands surrounding 
the bases of the 
kelp as they reach stretching 
up to 300 feet to the 
tossed gyrus and 
sulcus of the ocean 
sea foam surface

Copyright © Joe Brazeau | Year Posted 2023



Details | Joe Brazeau Poem

Downtown Mission

Grand Hope Flower
CA Hospital over 
a century of healing
Construction din
all of downtown one 
enormous construction 
site with all its might 
peeling into daylight 

Executive traffic thinks 
it’s funny, whizzes as 
acorns drop onto 
windshields and hoods 
of the angle parked cars. 

Drivers jostle, spar 
in their car for the 
pathetic number of 
any available space 
at any random regal ecstaseegle. 

Pedestrians in their 
weekday finery 
amble, rush, with 
crushed purpose and 
parade in their charade 
at exactifying tie tying 
for the next meeting 
conference justice lunch 
sentencing 
rendezvous park bench to 
quench the bottomless 
thirst which bursts from 
the lungs of the withered 
and the young. 

Tuesday, oughta be 
booze day for the 
leprechauns who 
realized they were fully 
exposed not in the 
shadowless shadows of 
spirits and meadows. 
But dodging every leaf 
whether plated or 
solid lab grown or 
natural rough hewn 
from the stalactites 
glistening in pitch 
blackness. 

Does the perpetual 
solid black know 
what brilliant colors 
adorn their rank cracks?
Ruby, peridot, 
aventurine, sapphire 
chrysoprase, agate galore, 
yet more upon more 
in scintillating splendor 
the microcrystalline 
jaspers, beryl in emerald, 
diamonds formed within 
gas bubbles inside 
magma and only forced 
to the crust via 
volcanic explosions, 
taking their toll, paying none. 

That murdefying sun 
all he has done 
can’t defend subtracting 
the particles waves 
radioactive haze. 
Bombarding every 
carbonic harmonic 
existence. Pre-existing 
conditions their only 
mission.

Copyright © Joe Brazeau | Year Posted 2023

Details | Joe Brazeau Poem

Equine Lines

Shaped by and for wind
the free flowing mane
timetables share in 
the horses of the plain

Gallop trot sprint unfold  
climbing breezes oblivion 
stoney story is told 
sculpted in black obsidian

Herds mighty now stampede
on hooves brittle exposed
o’er rocky ground to succeed
the grasses’ tufts unimposed

Crashing prairie like thunder
wet glowing shape in steam
gathers around from under  
yellow eyes black night scream

reflecting the tapetum lucidum 
moon spreads across the fields
rulers of their night kingdom
the fruits of what they yield

The form speed and shape 
lend the horse it’s prizes
furiously charging escape 
from predators’  disguises

meant to be free forever
no man upon its back
mysterious and clever 
evading animal attack 

strength outward haughty
curving muscular weight
tall thin legs almost scrawny
belies it’s gentle gait. 

But lightning they race 
in full sprint together 
dignity and grace 
sans saddle  or tether 

Free as the rain or sun
their beauty intelligence shares
meant to gallup and run 
no fences our world in theirs.

Copyright © Joe Brazeau | Year Posted 2023

Details | Joe Brazeau Poem

Tides

Sparkling shimmering brightened by sun
waves encroaching, receding as one
revealing a flash of color not meant
to be there by waveform or ocean’s intent 

tumbling among obsidian’s ocher dust
for tens if not hundreds of years to adjust
without warning or purpose of telling their story
lie shimmering in wave-worn flashes of glory

polished in water smoothed by sand
frosted translucent rubbed by the hand
of time and weather with gentle affection
producing a glass gem by natural selection

buried in darkness beneath crashing thunder
the sea hides secrets below waves and under
heavy wet sand where the silence not shared
with surface of water upon sand bars bared

to mark the orbits of passing starlight 
over distances unimaginable might
subtle to sculpt the rising tide
along night beaches as slipping waves ride

locked in place and stored deep
some treasures the ocean chooses to keep
one day perhaps release another gem
waxing moon, the seas and tides decide when

Copyright © Joe Brazeau | Year Posted 2023


Book: Reflection on the Important Things