States of Poetry - Poems

States of Poetry 2016 - South Australia | 'Where Brownlee Went' by Thom Sullivan

by Thom Sullivan •

States of Poetry South Australia - Series One

States of Poetry - Poems

States of Poetry 2016 - South Australia | 'Where Brownlee Went' by Thom Sullivan

by Thom Sullivan •

States of Poetry South Australia - Series One

after Paul Muldoon's 'Why Brownlee Left'

Where Brownlee went, and why he went,
is no mystery – Brady's bar.
And if a man should have fixed intent
it was him; two shots of whiskey,
one of Bushmills, one of Redbreast,
a cheer and a slab for the house.
He was then seen going out to piss
in the March morning, sure and surly.

By noon Brownlee was legless;
they found him in the beer-garden, the
modest ring untaken, his hair slick-wet –
and the publican's daughter
shifting a bucket from hand to
hand, him howling into a hankie.

Thom Sullivan

Thom Sullivan

Thom Sullivan is a poet and editor from Wistow/Bugle Ranges in the Adelaide Hills. A short collection of his poems, 'Airborne', was published in New Poets 14 in 2009. Since then he has edited or co-edited seven books of poetry, including Light & Glorie, an anthology of poems about stained glass, with Aidan Coleman. His poems have appeared in The Best Australian Poems 2014, The Best Australian Poems 2015, Australian Love Poems, Cordite, Transnational Literature, and Eureka Street. He lives in Adelaide, where he works in public policy.