No Sunshine.

[burrealist]

I painted out the sunshine with a brush of broom and briar Are you saying the sunshine is fading out, erasing? The verb "paint" suggests an addition of vivid imagery, not a depletion of it. 
but the birds still sang above the sage marquee.
I tried to listen downwards where the silence used to be,
in the places where my footfall stopped, I lay. I think this is grammatically incorrect. A period might work right after "stopped" to really enhance the pause.
The scents of life still sifted up through cloying clay below;
damply, like a dream that wakes but why, you never know. 
I heard a pulsing heart that was mine but seemed too grand;
it was loud and sounded closer than my senses could explain. I like the internal rhyme of "loud" and "sounded".
Blood rustled in my ears and beat  drums made out of hay You seem to be adding extraneous words for the meter. Meter is quite difficult- it requires an elaboration of economic language. Right here, I feel like you've taken away from that elaboration.
and this was how the music played, a bitter symphony.
No sweet guitars, no violins, no angels singing in the wings, Double meaning of "wings"- nice! Is that called word-play or a pun? I actually don't know.
no song from you, no perfumed hair, no brushing touch,
no warm, moist kiss…I painted out the sunshine yesterday. "No moistened kiss"? The word "warm" feels gross, but also feels forced into its place.



After a Van Morrison/ Ray Charles Concert 1996
tectak June 1996