With his trademark self-deprecating wit, unflinching honesty, and sparkling language, John Brehm’s latest collection invites readers along on his spiritual journey. No Day at the Beach traces a progression from loneliness and the magnetic pull of the past to the grace that is found through immersion in the present and the melancholy beauty of impermanence. Informed by Brehm’s Buddhist practice and enlivened by his comic insights, these poems take on a universal dimension, allowing the reader to both luxuriate in the moment and reflect on each poem’s spiritual depth.

By turns playfully philosophical and bracingly open hearted, Brehm’s engagement with the specters of memory, pride, yearning, gain, and loss illuminate the human condition with humor and empathy.

John Brehm is the author of Sea of Faith and Help Is on the Way and the editor of The Poetry of Impermanence, Mindfulness, and Joy. He teaches at the Mountain Writers Series and Literary Arts in Portland, Oregon, and Lighthouse Writers Workshop in Denver, Colorado.

Contents

I
Back Then  3
Tough Town  4
Swifts  5
Wishful Thinking  7
Sleeping in the Wind  9
The Dismal Kingdom  11
Cold Spell  13
Wisteria  14
The Vow  16
Loss and Gain  18
Dharma Talk  19
Fedora  20
Delayed Response  22
Looking on the Bright Side  23
Right Speech  24
Falling Hours  25
November  27
Signs and Wonderings  28

II
Blathery Performance  33
Introductions  36
I Decided to Weigh My Head  37
Genius Offshore  39
No Day at the Beach  40
Birds of a Feather  41
Sightlines  42
The Empty Chair  43
Intrigue in the Trees  44
In Brooklyn  46
Etiquette  49
Thin Man  50
Greatness  51
Nebraska  52
Spellbound  54
Walk the Talk  56
Time-Out  57
Circle  59
Field of Vision  61
Dick’s Kitchen Metaphysical  62
Opening  64
Winter Sky, with Crows 65
Something and Nothing 66
Second Sight  68
Disputed Theory  69
Here: An Epithalamion  70
Over the Moon 72

Acknowledgments  75