Brian's Brain
Brian’s Brain is a surrealist poem for people of all ages. There are fourteen verses with drawings to accompany this darkly humorous tale. The drawings come out of the artist duo playing the surrealist game, Exquisite Corpse, or Consequences in response to each verse.
There was a child whose brain fell out
While playing with a small brown trout
It slid out of his freckled nose
Narrowly missing his muddy toes
Firstly though, I should explain,
That his name was Brian and he lived near Tain
His home was a shabby button-ben
With a yard, a burn and a bedraggled hen
Brian's mum was a warm- hearted person
Whose vagueness often made her uncertain
She worked for a notorious bully
And he exploited her kindness fully
Brian's mum's degrading job
Involved her working for a snob
Who only paid her the minimum wage
When he wasn't in a terrible rage
For want of any better work
She put up with this stupid twerp
But it was hard for her to ignore
The fact that they were very poor
Owing to always being so tired
And just relieved she hadn't been fired
She failed to notice Brian's plight
Until much later on that night
She wandered out with a packet of seeds
Of meadow grasses and plenty of weeds
"Oh joy!" she exclaimed on spotting the muddle
Of brain she mistook for a sticky pink puddle
Brian just sat with his head in his hands
as she dreamily told him her garden plans
Scattering the seeds on his brain
Knowing the forecast was for rain
With no thoughts he couldn't reply
As his mum heated soup from her dwindling supply
Of cans, cheap and quick, if tasteless and bland
And they spooned the slop with silent hands
By teatime promising shoots had grown
From the compost comprising blood and bone
By night time buds were forming fast
Flowers getting ready to blast
Slowly, bizarrely Brian found words
Forming like cheese from whey and curds
Initially sounding a ludicrous squeak
He tested his voice in an effort to speak
Brian's fair curls began to turn
The colour of chestnuts, moss and fern
And his voice became like the lilting call
Of a woodpigeon high upon the wall
His mother gasped in awe and wonder
Aware of the sound of distant thunder
While tiny green stems continued to spread
Within the space in Brian's head
The child's new voice spoke of rewilding
Their planet into a world beguiling
So around the world children would grow
Powered by foods that adults would sow
