Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

[Chris Dec]

The Death of Her Dishes

There was a phone call.
When she got the news, she chipped a plate on the faucet,
and dropped it in the sink to finish it off.
Then she grabbed two more and hurled them down hard onto the tile floor.
This was good, the mass of shards and rubble.
She could create something with this, as soon as the destruction was done.

When she got the call, there was no time to think.
The news spread through her like the blue star that travels
across the space in the lightbulb
just before it burns out.

She stared at the phone.
It took the last flying plate.

When so many hours passed that
She couldn’t remember where the vacuum was,
she sat and stared at the new and hopeful form the dishes took.

• • •

I know someday I will get the call, and perhaps I will be holding a plate.
Maybe I will let it go, send it crashing into that dark passage from dish to dust.
Seeing every table set, every saddened supper, how a family fills the space,
I will look upon that pile of broken bone china and unfulfilled desires.

Where is forgiveness kept in the household?
Is it in the cupboard... or on the slipping plate...
Is it in the pile...
Is this how the universe began?

Chris Dec 2001

The Day Will Come
And the day will come when you hit the switch, but the room will remain dark.
Your computer will not hum, your monitor will not glow, and you will have no flashing games to play.
The gas pump will remain silent, and you will be forced to walk.
If you don’t know how to start a fire, you will be cold.
If you are wealthy, you will be greatly inconvenienced.
If you live under a bridge, you will not notice the difference.

- Armando Garcia

[Larry Robinson]

Wet Weather
Tonight I track them down, slugs in the primroses, snails
in the hyacinths. Even before their sweet bells open,
chewed to slippery brown nubs. I cut the slugs in half,
harvest baby snails off the chrysanthemums, collect
heavy shells in a plastic bag, crunch them all underfoot,
empty this slaughter in the compost. Trying to save the vegetables.
The fog's in, somewhere a dog won't stop barking. In our house
you're dying, going out of yourself, leaving this world.
When we say God to one another, I don't know who God is.
I decide against the snails and slugs, but they keep on,
greedy for hyacinth and lettuce. From the other side
of a gate she's too small to open, a child's crying. She
can't get back to her world of yard and toys, her house.
Outside the circle of my flashlight, the snails
leave silver lines, patterns in the dirt. Outdoors
in this dripping weather, a knife in my hand,
wet plastic sticking to itself in slime and bits of shell,
I want the child's mother here, her answering words:
"It's all right now. Didn't you know I'd come?"

- Jeanne Lohmann

[Larry Robinson]

Rain Woman

She wakes me at four in the morning
although the mad drumming that breaks my sleep
is more the resistance of corrugated fiberglass
than the wild velocity of her downpour.

I’m on the porch, zipped into a sleeping bag.
She’s glissading in sheets around the porch.
The roof is running strong interference
and as the saying goes, three’s a crowd.

I want to hear her, only her.
I want to listen with my feathered head
tucked in a downy wing, to be warm
and dry in my den, ears alert

eyes staring into the wet dark. I want to hear
how she eases silver into velvet moss
how she spatters the duff, pummels dusty leaves
so I get up and walk into the storm.

Just before dawn, she disappears.
I become a leaf shedding her shining
a blade of grass silently sipping
a calm, clean, very cold stone.


- Cynthia Poten

[Larry Robinson]

Childhood Prayers


Yes, as a child I prayed,
because the nights in bed
were long and dark
and the days


had already shattered my mind
into gleaming fragments
moving quickly upon
a flame of fear.


Yes, I prayed
into the darkness,
for there were holes
in the safe world
and even my parents
were not always
the people I knew.


I tried to hold our family
safely in my arms
so that it would not shatter too,
along the fault lines I knew,
and leave me all alone.


I prayed and never thought
these prayers trying to find
their way upward through thick
layers of tangled, textured shadow


were answered, but it may be
the prayers themselves were
the answer needed then.


- Max Reif

[Larry Robinson]

Having intended to merely pick on an oil company,
the poem goes awry


Never before have I so resembled British Petroleum.
They – it? – are concerned about the environment.
I – it? – am concerned about the environment.
They – him? – convey their concern through commercials,
in which a man talks softly about the importance
of the environment. I – doodad? – convey my concern
through poems, in which my fingers type softly
about the importance of the Earth. They – oligarchs? –
have painted their slogans green. I– ineffectual
left-leaning emotional black-hole of a self-sempahore? –
recycle. Isn’t a corporation technically a person
and responsible? Aren’t I technically a person
and responsible? In a legal sense, in a regal sense,
if romanticism holds sway? To give you a feel
for how soft his voice is, imagine a kitty
that eats only felt wearing a sable coat on a bed
of dandelion fluff under sheets of the foreskins
of seraphim, that’s how soothingly they want to drill
in Alaska, in your head, just in case. And let’s be honest,
we mostly want them to, we mostly want to get to the bank
by two so we can get out of town by three and beat
the traffic, traffic is murder this time of year.
How far would you walk for bread? For the flour
to make bread? A yard, a mile, a year, a life?
Now you ask me, when are you going to fix your bike
and ride it to work? Past the plain horses
and spotted cows and the spotted horses and plain cows,
along the river, to the left of the fallen-down barn
and the right of the falling-down barn, up the hill,
through the Pentecostal bend and past the Methodist
edifice, through the speed trap, beside the art gallery
and cigar shop, past the tattoo parlor and the bar
and the other bar and the other other bar and the other
other other bar and the bar that closed, where I swear,
al-anon meets, since I’m wondering, what is the value
of the wick or wire of the soul, be it emotional
or notional, now that oceans are wheezing to a stop?



- Bob Hicok

[Larry Robinson]

Getting There


You take a final step and, look, suddenly
You're there. You've arrived
At the one place all your drudgery was aimed for:
This common ground
Where you stretch out, pressing your cheek to sandstone.


What did you want
To be? You'll remember soon. You feel like tinder
Under a burning glass,
A luminous point of change. The sky is pulsing
Against the cracked horizon,
Holding it firm till the arrival of stars
In time with your heartbeats.
Like wind etching rock, you've made a lasting impression
On the self you were
By having come all this way through all this welter
Under your own power,
Though your traces on a map would make an unpromising
Meandering lifeline.


What have you learned so far? You'll find out later,
Telling it haltingly
Like a dream, that lost traveler's dream
Under the last hill
Where through the night you'll take your time out of mind
To unburden yourself
Of elements along elementary paths
By the break of morning.


You've earned this worn-down, hard, incredible sight
Called Here and Now.
Now, what you make of it means everything,
Means starting over:
The life in your hands is neither here nor there
But getting there,
So you're standing again and breathing, beginning another
Journey without regret
Forever, being your own unpeaceable kingdom,
The end of endings.




- David Wagoner

[Larry Robinson]

Weather Report
The vultures of this landscape came to call
this morning—found a bare-limbed tree outside
my kitchen window, settled in & held
my gaze, big tar blobs against a milky sky:
We understand you, their presence informed me,
And I you, I told them in silence.
Right now
this day can’t make up its mind—sun’s half out
but rain’s in those clouds. It it’s that cold wind—
driven stuff that swats your eyes like a drink
full of crushed ice thrown in in your face, I’ll stay
indoors, count my failures & petty crimes,
loathe my life, and completely understand
why friends and loved ones keep their distance.
The barometer yo-yos my mental state—
one day I’m a happy old dude, kitchen
dancer, car-driving harmonizer, hilltop
walker delighted by the world.
Next day
it’s the big not, the mega-never. And where
are you breeze-blown death birds now that I need you?
This mean rain’s rotting the starch right out of me.
Come down from your perch, my beauties, I’m
opening doors and windows, I’m looking for snacks
in the back of the fridge. Here—try roosting
on this chair back. Please just sit with me
around my table. I’ll hold up both ends
of our conversation. It’s like forever
I’ve wanted to talk to you. Here—let me
turn off these lights—I know you like the dark.
- David Huddle

[Larry Robinson]

After


after chopping off all the arms that reached out to me;
after boarding up all the windows and doors;

after filling all the pits with poisoned water;
after building my house on a rock of a no,
inaccessible to flattery and fear;

after cutting out my tongue and eating it;
after hurling handfuls of silence and
monosyllables of scorn at my loves;

after forgetting my name;
and the name of my birthplace;
and the name of my race;

after judging and sentencing myself
to perpetual waiting,
and perpetual loneliness, I heard
against the stones of my dungeon of syllogisms,

the humid, tender, insistent
onset of spring.

- Octavio Paz

[Larry Robinson]

Metamorphoses


There were the stories Ovid wrote.
There is nothing burning there.
Read for your life or not at all.
Curiosity has its fixed bourn.

Change of Myrrha into pith.
Change, change, change, what should change
but the grasp of habit. The refusal
to abide in change. Fear
of Proteus, God-Who-Changes-Too-Fast.

The monkey of the mind seeking
the next attention fleeting from tree
to tree, going nowhere for nothing,
not for food, for fun, for fear.
Flying as a form of marking time in place.
Bludgeoning the ground with consistency.

Myrrha’s Refusal
births Adonis.
Yes, and Venus’ oval eye
falls into the jail of his beauty.
She spaniels him
everywhere.

Atalanta’s dress falls to her feet
as she preps to race naked.
And Hippomenes who’s mocked
her for her slaughtered suitors
cries out in his brains for her now.

And she for him.
He’s so lovely.
If he outrun her he wins her.
If she him,
he dies.

He wants only three apples
of red gold
to do it.
Yes.

Her fleet feet fled for the first gold ball.
Such a trinket. He, from Lady Venus
tutored how to toss it.
The second – pitched as she passed him –
and she caught it in midflight
flying to the fatal finish.

Only one left. Far ahead of him she,
she saw it lob into the arroyo
dark. Oh, heavy laden with two,
she hoped to spurn the last
and win. But Lady Venus said, No. So
down among the brambles she sought it
and won the lost loss.

The gore of slaughtered suitors
was not to be her rug. And he,
Hippomenes? He, fool, forgot
to thank Venus for it. Who made them into
lions as they fucked.

Venus only once forgot.
Aloft she flew with a taunt
to a youth who hunted, and
his dogs took scent
of a boar who gored him up his groin.
She saw, came down, gathered
into her arms the perfect dead
Adonis. Scored her face with anguish
and with its blood mixed with his
into pomegranates he was changed.

So I do not take Lorenzo de’ Medici’s
“Nothing lasts. Only death” as mine,
when what is Change but death,
death coming like a flower of spring
whose nectar is a venom that can cure?


- Bruce Moody

[Larry Robinson]

In honor of National Poetry Month the Sebastopol Center for the Arts invites you to join us for a delightful evening of poetry Thursday, April 10 at 7:00 PM. Twenty poetry lovers from the community, including Sonoma County Poet Laureate Katherine Hastings, will read or recite their favorite poems.

The event is free and refreshments will be served. Please plan to join us.

The Sebastopol Center for the Arts is located at 282 South High Street, Sebastopol.




The Morning’s News

The morning’s news drives sleep out of the head
at night. Uselessness and horror hold the eyes
open to the dark. Weary, we lie awake
in the agony of the old giving birth to the new
without assurance that the new will be better.
I look at my son, whose eyes are like a young god’s,
they are so open to the world.
I look at my sloping fields now turning
green with the young grass of April. What must I do
to go free? I think I must put on
a deathlier knowledge, and prepare to die
rather than enter into the design of man’s hate.
I will purge my mind of the airy claims
of church and state. I will serve the earth
and not pretend my life could better serve.
Another morning comes with its strange cure.
The earth is news. Though the river floods
and the spring is cold, my heart goes on,
faithful to a mystery in a cloud,
and the summer’s garden continues its descent
through me, toward the ground.

- Wendell Berry

[Larry Robinson]

Master of the Universe

Master of the Universe
laid an egg,
sat upon it for eternity,
Dreamed it was an oyster
discovered by a child
visiting the sea.
Child pried it open
found a pearl
which became the world
as we know it,
It hangs to this day
around the child’s neck
while the Master rests patiently
upon the egg
inside
of all things.
- Gary Turchin

[Larry Robinson]

Saturn's Rings


Last night I saw the rings of Saturn

for the first time, that brilliant band
of icy crystals and dust. Mirrors
shepherding the light, collecting it
like pollen or manna
or pails of sweet clear water drawn
from the depths of an ancient well.
The gleam poured through my pupils
into this small, temporary body,
my wrinkled brain in its eggshell skull,
my tunneling blood, breasts that remember
the sting and flush of milk.
Saturn, its frozen rings fire-white,
reflecting the sun from a billion miles.
Maybe there's a word in another language
for when distance dissolves into time.
How are we changed when we stand out
under the fat stars of summer,
our pores opening in the night?
The earth from Saturn is a pale blue orb,
smaller than the heart of whoever you love.
You don't forget the poles of the earth
turning to slush,
you don't forget the turtles
burning in the Gulf.
Burger King at the end of the street
is frying perfectly round patties,
the cows off I-5 stand ankle deep
in excrement. The television
spreads its blue wings over the window
of the house across from mine
where someone's husband pressed a gun
against the ridged roof of his mouth.
This choreography of ruin, the world breaking
like glass under a microscope,
the way it doesn't crack all at once,
but spreads out from the damaged cavities.
Still for a moment it all recedes.
The backyard potatoes swell quietly
buried beneath their canopy of leaves.
The wind rubs its hands through the trees.


- Ellen Bass

[Larry Robinson]

The Mask of Anarchy


Written on the occasion of the massacre carried out by the British Government
at Peterloo, Manchester 1819


As I lay asleep in Italy
There came a voice from over the Sea,
And with great power it forth led me
To walk in the visions of Poesy.


I met Murder on the way -
He had a mask like Castlereagh -
Very smooth he looked, yet grim;
Seven blood-hounds followed him:


All were fat; and well they might
Be in admirable plight,
For one by one, and two by two,
He tossed the human hearts to chew
Which from his wide cloak he drew.


Next came Fraud, and he had on,
Like Eldon, an ermined gown;
His big tears, for he wept well,
Turned to mill-stones as they fell.


And the little children, who
Round his feet played to and fro,
Thinking every tear a gem,
Had their brains knocked out by them.


Clothed with the Bible, as with light,
And the shadows of the night,
Like Sidmouth, next, Hypocrisy
On a crocodile rode by.


And many more Destructions played
In this ghastly masquerade,
All disguised, even to the eyes,
Like Bishops, lawyers, peers, or spies.


Last came Anarchy: he rode
On a white horse, splashed with blood;
He was pale even to the lips,
Like Death in the Apocalypse.


And he wore a kingly crown;
And in his grasp a sceptre shone;
On his brow this mark I saw -
'I AM GOD, AND KING, AND LAW!'


With a pace stately and fast,
Over English land he passed,
Trampling to a mire of blood
The adoring multitude.


And a mighty troop around,
With their trampling shook the ground,
Waving each a bloody sword,
For the service of their Lord.


And with glorious triumph, they
Rode through England proud and gay,
Drunk as with intoxication
Of the wine of desolation.


O'er fields and towns, from sea to sea,
Passed the Pageant swift and free,
Tearing up, and trampling down;
Till they came to London town.


And each dweller, panic-stricken,
Felt his heart with terror sicken
Hearing the tempestuous cry
Of the triumph of Anarchy.


For with pomp to meet him came,
Clothed in arms like blood and flame,
The hired murderers, who did sing
'Thou art God, and Law, and King.


'We have waited, weak and lone
For thy coming, Mighty One!
Our Purses are empty, our swords are cold,
Give us glory, and blood, and gold.'


Lawyers and priests, a motley crowd,
To the earth their pale brows bowed;
Like a bad prayer not over loud,
Whispering - 'Thou art Law and God.' -


Then all cried with one accord,
'Thou art King, and God and Lord;
Anarchy, to thee we bow,
Be thy name made holy now!'


And Anarchy, the skeleton,
Bowed and grinned to every one,
As well as if his education
Had cost ten millions to the nation.


For he knew the Palaces
Of our Kings were rightly his;
His the sceptre, crown and globe,
And the gold-inwoven robe.


So he sent his slaves before
To seize upon the Bank and Tower,
And was proceeding with intent
To meet his pensioned Parliament


When one fled past, a maniac maid,
And her name was Hope, she said:
But she looked more like Despair,
And she cried out in the air:


'My father Time is weak and gray
With waiting for a better day;
See how idiot-like he stands,
Fumbling with his palsied hands!


He has had child after child,
And the dust of death is piled
Over every one but me -
Misery, oh, Misery!'


Then she lay down in the street,
Right before the horses' feet,
Expecting, with a patient eye,
Murder, Fraud, and Anarchy.


When between her and her foes
A mist, a light, an image rose,
Small at first, and weak, and frail
Like the vapour of a vale:


Till as clouds grow on the blast,
Like tower-crowned giants striding fast,
And glare with lightnings as they fly,
And speak in thunder to the sky,


It grew - a Shape arrayed in mail
Brighter than the viper's scale,
And upborne on wings whose grain
Was as the light of sunny rain.


On its helm, seen far away,
A planet, like the Morning's, lay;
And those plumes its light rained through
Like a shower of crimson dew.


With step as soft as wind it passed
O'er the heads of men - so fast
That they knew the presence there,
And looked, - but all was empty air.


As flowers beneath May's footstep waken,
As stars from Night's loose hair are shaken,
As waves arise when loud winds call,
Thoughts sprung where'er that step did fall.


And the prostrate multitude
Looked - and ankle-deep in blood,
Hope, that maiden most serene,
Was walking with a quiet mien:


And Anarchy, the ghastly birth,
Lay dead earth upon the earth;
The Horse of Death tameless as wind
Fled, and with his hoofs did grind
To dust the murderers thronged behind.


A rushing light of clouds and splendour,
A sense awakening and yet tender
Was heard and felt - and at its close
These words of joy and fear arose


As if their own indignant Earth
Which gave the sons of England birth
Had felt their blood upon her brow,
And shuddering with a mother's throe


Had turned every drop of blood
By which her face had been bedewed
To an accent unwithstood, -
As if her heart had cried aloud:


'Men of England, heirs of Glory,
Heroes of unwritten story,
Nurslings of one mighty Mother,
Hopes of her, and one another;


'Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number,
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you -
Ye are many - they are few.


'What is Freedom? - ye can tell
That which slavery is, too well -
For its very name has grown
To an echo of your own.


'Tis to work and have such pay
As just keeps life from day to day
In your limbs, as in a cell
For the tyrants' use to dwell,


'So that ye for them are made
Loom, and plough, and sword, and spade,
With or without your own will bent
To their defence and nourishment.


'Tis to see your children weak
With their mothers pine and peak,
When the winter winds are bleak, -
They are dying whilst I speak.


'Tis to hunger for such diet
As the rich man in his riot
Casts to the fat dogs that lie
Surfeiting beneath his eye;


'Tis to let the Ghost of Gold
Take from Toil a thousandfold
More that e'er its substance could
In the tyrannies of old.


'Paper coin - that forgery
Of the title-deeds, which ye
Hold to something of the worth
Of the inheritance of Earth.


'Tis to be a slave in soul
And to hold no strong control
Over your own wills, but be
All that others make of ye.


'And at length when ye complain
With a murmur weak and vain
'Tis to see the Tyrant's crew
Ride over your wives and you -
Blood is on the grass like dew.


'Then it is to feel revenge
Fiercely thirsting to exchange
Blood for blood - and wrong for wrong -
Do not thus when ye are strong.


'Birds find rest, in narrow nest
When weary of their wingèd quest
Beasts find fare, in woody lair
When storm and snow are in the air.


'Asses, swine, have litter spread
And with fitting food are fed;
All things have a home but one -
Thou, Oh, Englishman, hast none!


'This is slavery - savage men
Or wild beasts within a den
Would endure not as ye do -
But such ills they never knew.


'What art thou Freedom? O! could slaves
Answer from their living graves
This demand - tyrants would flee
Like a dream's dim imagery:


'Thou art not, as impostors say,
A shadow soon to pass away,
A superstition, and a name
Echoing from the cave of Fame.


'For the labourer thou art bread,
And a comely table spread
From his daily labour come
In a neat and happy home.


'Thou art clothes, and fire, and food
For the trampled multitude -
No - in countries that are free
Such starvation cannot be
As in England now we see.


'To the rich thou art a check,
When his foot is on the neck
Of his victim, thou dost make
That he treads upon a snake.


'Thou art Justice - ne'er for gold
May thy righteous laws be sold
As laws are in England - thou
Shield'st alike the high and low.


'Thou art Wisdom - Freemen never
Dream that God will damn for ever
All who think those things untrue
Of which Priests make such ado.


'Thou art Peace - never by thee
Would blood and treasure wasted be
As tyrants wasted them, when all
Leagued to quench thy flame in Gaul.


'What if English toil and blood
Was poured forth, even as a flood?
It availed, Oh, Liberty,
To dim, but not extinguish thee.


'Thou art Love - the rich have kissed
Thy feet, and like him following Christ,
Give their substance to the free
And through the rough world follow thee,


'Or turn their wealth to arms, and make
War for thy belovèd sake
On wealth, and war, and fraud - whence they
Drew the power which is their prey.


'Science, Poetry, and Thought
Are thy lamps; they make the lot
Of the dwellers in a cot
So serene, they curse it not.


'Spirit, Patience, Gentleness,
All that can adorn and bless
Art thou - let deeds, not words, express
Thine exceeding loveliness.


'Let a great Assembly be
Of the fearless and the free
On some spot of English ground
Where the plains stretch wide around.


'Let the blue sky overhead,
The green earth on which ye tread,
All that must eternal be
Witness the solemnity.


'From the corners uttermost
Of the bounds of English coast;
From every hut, village, and town
Where those who live and suffer moan,


'From the workhouse and the prison
Where pale as corpses newly risen,
Women, children, young and old
Groan for pain, and weep for cold -


'From the haunts of daily life
Where is waged the daily strife
With common wants and common cares
Which sows the human heart with tares -


'Lastly from the palaces
Where the murmur of distress
Echoes, like the distant sound
Of a wind alive around


'Those prison halls of wealth and fashion,
Where some few feel such compassion
For those who groan, and toil, and wail
As must make their brethren pale -


'Ye who suffer woes untold,
Or to feel, or to behold
Your lost country bought and sold
With a price of blood and gold -


'Let a vast assembly be,
And with great solemnity
Declare with measured words that ye
Are, as God has made ye, free -


'Be your strong and simple words
Keen to wound as sharpened swords,
And wide as targes let them be,
With their shade to cover ye.


'Let the tyrants pour around
With a quick and startling sound,
Like the loosening of a sea,
Troops of armed emblazonry.


Let the charged artillery drive
Till the dead air seems alive
With the clash of clanging wheels,
And the tramp of horses' heels.


'Let the fixèd bayonet
Gleam with sharp desire to wet
Its bright point in English blood
Looking keen as one for food.


'Let the horsemen's scimitars
Wheel and flash, like sphereless stars
Thirsting to eclipse their burning
In a sea of death and mourning.


'Stand ye calm and resolute,
Like a forest close and mute,
With folded arms and looks which are
Weapons of unvanquished war,


'And let Panic, who outspeeds
The career of armèd steeds
Pass, a disregarded shade
Through your phalanx undismayed.


'Let the laws of your own land,
Good or ill, between ye stand
Hand to hand, and foot to foot,
Arbiters of the dispute,


'The old laws of England - they
Whose reverend heads with age are gray,
Children of a wiser day;
And whose solemn voice must be
Thine own echo - Liberty!


'On those who first should violate
Such sacred heralds in their state
Rest the blood that must ensue,
And it will not rest on you.


'And if then the tyrants dare
Let them ride among you there,
Slash, and stab, and maim, and hew, -
What they like, that let them do.


'With folded arms and steady eyes,
And little fear, and less surprise,
Look upon them as they slay
Till their rage has died away.


'Then they will return with shame
To the place from which they came,
And the blood thus shed will speak
In hot blushes on their cheek.


'Every woman in the land
Will point at them as they stand -
They will hardly dare to greet
Their acquaintance in the street.


'And the bold, true warriors
Who have hugged Danger in wars
Will turn to those who would be free,
Ashamed of such base company.


'And that slaughter to the Nation
Shall steam up like inspiration,
Eloquent, oracular;
A volcano heard afar.


'And these words shall then become
Like Oppression's thundered doom
Ringing through each heart and brain,
Heard again - again - again -


'Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number -
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you -
Ye are many - they are few.'


- Percy Bysshe Shelley

[Larry Robinson]

Common

Imagine being common, crow-common
Lupine-common, an oak surrounded by dry,
Wild grasses common.

One day, I cross a high school parking lot,
Common asphalt, meeting my common soles.
Before me, an explosion of gulls,
White as a bride's dress, shoot as one
Up, then spill over, a fountain pouring perfectly
Each bird, a bead of liquid life. Again,
They explode, shoot skyward and spill over
Again and again, threaded through by trails
Of blue-black crows, woven into the flying
Fabric by necessity, desire and instinct.

I comment to a man pushing a compost can,
Remark at the remarkable. He says, "Oh,
They do that every day. At lunch the students,
Leave behind bits of bread," treasures
From barely-noticed food, common fare eaten daily.

I want to be that common,
Common as the gulls, rising and descending,
And the crows, weaving their way
To the feast, that bread,
That common manna.

- Rebecca del Rio

[Larry Robinson]

The Dream Gardener
For My Brother Michael (April 7, 1950 - February 1, 2007)


You arrive in my dream
planting figs in my garden walls.
“These figs can be found all over the world,” you say.


Even now, as I send these words
across the night divide,
Lovers are tasting voluptuous sweetness,
delectable orbs
bearing ripe possibility and promise.


Walls disguised as mortar and mud
are reborn as miracles of life,
invisible riches
coaxed from the cracks
of what has hollowed and dried,
tended into their own becoming
against all odds,
by the dream gardener’s hands.


I wonder about those worldwide tasting strangers,
are they swallowing their fate,
partaking of its bittersweet flavors,
whether heaven or hell?


When expelled from the garden
like you,
have they found their own beauty
at the edges of loss,
made their particular peace
with freedom and fear?


Or have they thrust themselves
righteous as beacons
away from this earth?
Offered themselves
like gathered fruits
to the limitless silence
of the land of the dead,


somehow arising
from that dark altar of mystery,
as seeds of hope,
where figs grow from walls,
and all the departed
all over the worlds
arrive as gardeners
growing food for the hungry
the humbled
the heartsick
they have destined to leave behind.


- Terry Ebinger

[Larry Robinson]

Wait


Wait, for now.
Distrust everything, if you have to.
But trust the hours. Haven't they
carried you everywhere, up to now?
Personal events will become interesting again.
Hair will become interesting.
Pain will become interesting.
Buds that open out of season will become lovely again.
Second-hand gloves will become lovely again,
their memories are what give them
the need for other hands. And the desolation
of lovers is the same: that enormous emptiness
carved out of such tiny beings as we are
asks to be filled; the need
for the new love is faithfulness to the old.


Wait.
Don't go too early.
You're tired. But everyone's tired.
But no one is tired enough.
Only wait a while and listen.
Music of hair,
Music of pain,
music of looms weaving all our loves again.
Be there to hear it, it will be the only time,
most of all to hear,
the flute of your whole existence,
rehearsed by the sorrows, play itself into total exhaustion.


- Galway Kinnell

[Larry Robinson]

Advaita


You say "non-dual",

Not that,
Which describes this and that.
Or even "not this, not that",
Which implies a third thing.


Let us see instead
The pink blossom of the lotus
Hanging in our chests
And the golden window there
Leading to our hearts.


Let us hear the sound of the universe
In our own voice,
And feel everything here
That God cannot.


Let us know
Our one soul
By looking in each other's eyes.


- B Sue

[Larry Robinson]

Too Many Problems


The dilemma, my love, is
your life is constructed of all these
magnificent problems,
and were you to fix them all
there'd be nothing left of you,
save a naked beautiful soul
weeping to God for love
which is what we all are in the end.


Instead of fixing all
those problems
perhaps it would be easier
to let them go and just start
weeping


- Greg Kimura

[Larry Robinson]

Inventing a Horse


Inventing a horse is not easy.
One must not only think of the horse.
One must dig fence posts around him.
One must include a place where horses like to live;

or do when they live with humans like you.
Slowly, you must walk him in the cold;
feed him bran mash, apples;
accustom him to the harness;

holding in mind even when you are tired
harnesses and tack cloths and saddle oil
to keep the saddle clean as a face in the sun;
one must imagine teaching him to run

among the knuckles of tree roots,
not to be skittish at first sight of timber wolves,
and not to grow thin in the city,
where at some point you will have to live;

and one must imagine the absence of money.
Most of all though: the living weight,
the sound of his feet on the needles,
and, since he is heavy, and real,

and sometimes tired after a run
down the river with a light whip at his side,
one must imagine love
in the mind that does not know love,

an animal mind, a love that does not depend
on your image of it,
your understanding of it;
indifferent to all that it lacks:

a muzzle and two black eyes
looking the day away, a field empty
of everything but witch grass, fluent trees,
and some piles of hay.


- Meghan O’Rourke

[Larry Robinson]

For Art Warmouth (1936-2014)


I have walked along many roads,
and opened paths through brush,
I have sailed over a hundred seas
and tied up on a hundred shores.


Everywhere I’ve gone I’ve seen
excursions of sadness,
angry and melancholy
drunkards with black shadows,


and academics in offstage clothes
who watch, say nothing, and think
they know, because they do not drink wine
in the ordinary bars.


Evil men who walk around
polluting the earth. . .


And everywhere I’ve been I’ve seen
men who dance and play,
when they can, and work
the few inches of ground they have.


If they turn up somewhere,
they never ask where they are.
When they take trips, they ride
on the backs of old mules.


They don’t know how to hurry,
not even on holidays.
They drink wine, if there is some,
if not, cool water.


These men are the good ones,
who love, work, walk and dream.
And on a day no different from the rest
they lie down beneath the earth.


- Antonio Machado
(translated by Robert Bly)

[Larry Robinson]

At Last


It is not true that every son
and father come to this
the rough bass of your voice
singing the endless tune
I'm sorry I'm sorry
two words you have not spoken
your ninety years till now
Each time they seem to end
or begin some long tale told
in a tongue neither of of us speaks
and in this room just you and I
to hear those two small words
drift down and settle in your hands
where they have fallen on the sheets
opened in defeat or peace
I take one hand in two of mine
and though it never was
say It's all right It's all right
and of course at last it is


- Richard Lehnert

[Larry Robinson]

Brahma


If the red slayer think he slays,
Or if the slain think he is slain,
They know not well the subtle ways
I keep, and pass, and turn again.


Far or forgot to me is near;
Shadow and sunlight are the same;
The vanished gods to me appear;
And one to me are shame and fame.


They reckon ill who leave me out;
When me they fly, I am the wings;
I am the doubter and the doubt,
I am the hymn the Brahmin sings.


The strong gods pine for my abode,
And pine in vain the sacred Seven;
But thou, meek lover of the good!
Find me, and turn thy back on heaven.


- Ralph Waldo Emerson

[Larry Robinson]

Ancient Egyptian Love

This love is as good

As oil and honey to the throat,
As linen to the body,
As fine garments to the gods,
As incense to worshippers when they enter in,
As the little seal-ring to my finger.

It is like a ripe pear in a man's hand.
It is like the dates we mix with wine.
It is like the seeds the baker adds to bread.

We will be together even when old age comes.

And the days in between
Will be food set before us,
Dates and honey, bread and wine.

Translated by Michael V. Fox




This song/poem dates from the 19^th or 20^th Egyptian dynasty
(ca. 1300-1100 B.C.E.).


It was found written in hieroglyphics on a vase.

[Larry Robinson]

Prothalamium
Come, all you who are not satisfied
as ruler in a lone, wallpapered room
full of mute birds, and flowers that falsely bloom,
and closets choked with dreams that long ago died!
Come, let us sweep the old streets - like a bride;
sweep out dead leaves with a relentless broom;
prepare for Spring, as though he were our groom
for whose light footstep eagerly we bide.
We'll sweep out shadows, where the rats long fed;
sweep out our shame - and in its place we'll make
a bower for love, a splendid marriage-bed
fragrant with flowers aquiver for the Spring.
And when he comes, our murdered dreams shall wake;
and when he comes, all the mute birds shall sing.


- Aaron Kramer

[Larry Robinson]

April Prayer


Just before the green begins there is the hint of green
a blush of color, and the red buds thicken
the ends of the maple’s branches and everything
is poised before the start of a new world,
which is really the same world
just moving forward from bud
to flower to blossom to fruit
to harvest to sweet sleep, and the roots
await the next signal, every signal
every call a miracle and the switchboard
is lighting up and the operators are
standing by in the pledge drive we’ve
all been listening to: Go make the call.


- Stuart Kestenbaum

[Larry Robinson]

Lunas de los arcángeles

a Gabriel García Márquez


Dice Gabriel el arcángel
que por cada minuto
que uno cierre los ojos
se pierden sesenta segundos
de luz -
por eso vigila de noche
y enciende velitas de azucenas,
las estrellas sin cuenta,
con su lámpara redonda
de la luna plena.

Dice Rafael el arcángel
que por cada minuto
que uno duerma
se escapan sesenta peces
de ensueño -
por eso vaga la playa nocturna
para coger los peces de azogue,
las estrellas sin cuenta,
en redes con el flotador
de la luna plena.

Dice Miguel el arcángel
que por cada minuto
que uno olvide
se marchitan sesenta flores
del recuerdo -
por eso va por la noche
segando con su espada de plata
los jazmines de llama,
las estrellas sin cuenta,
que recoge en su escudo
de la luna plena.

© Rafael Jesús González 2015

---

Moons of the Archangels

for Gabriel García Márquez


Gabriel the archangel says
that for each minute
one closes the eyes
are lost sixty seconds
of light -
that is why he watches at night
and lights votive candles of lilies,
the stars beyond count,
with his round lamp
the full moon.

Rafael the archangel says
that for each minute
one sleeps
there escape sixty fishes
of illusion -
that is why he roams the night beach
to catch the quicksilver fish,
the stars beyond count,
in nets with their float
the full moon.

Michael the archangel says
that for each minute
one forgets
there wither sixty flowers
of remembrance -
that is why he goes through the night
reaping with his silver sword
the jasmines of flame,
the stars beyond count,
he gathers on his shield
the full moon.

- Rafael Jesús González 2014

[Larry Robinson]

Easter Morning In Wales


A garden inside me, unknown, secret,
Neglected for years,
The layers of its soil deep and thick.
Trees in the corners with branching arms
And the tangled briars like broken nets.


Sunrise through the misted orchard,
Morning sun turns silver on the pointed twigs.
I have woken from the sleep of ages and I am not sure
If I am really seeing, or dreaming,
Or simply astonished
Walking toward sunrise
To have stumbled into the garden
Where the stone was rolled from the tomb of longing.


- David Whyte

[Larry Robinson]

Hurricane


Pistols shots ring out in the barroom night

Enter Patty Valentine from the upper hall
She sees the bartender in a pool of blood
Cries out "My God they killed them all"
Here comes the story of the Hurricane
The man the authorities came to blame
For something that he never done
Put him in a prison cell but one time he could-a been
The champion of the world.


Three bodies lying there does Patty see
And another man named Bello moving around mysteriously
"I didn't do it" he says and he throws up his hands
"I was only robbing the register I hope you understand
I saw them leaving" he says and he stops
"One of us had better call up the cops"
And so Patty calls the cops
And they arrive on the scene with their red lights flashing
In the hot New Jersey night.


Meanwhile far away in another part of town
Rubin Carter and a couple of friends are driving around
Number one contender for the middleweight crown
Had no idea what kinda shit was about to go down
When a cop pulled him over to the side of the road
Just like the time before and the time before that
In Patterson that's just the way things go
If you're black you might as well not shown up on the street
'Less you wanna draw the heat.


Alfred Bello had a partner and he had a rap for the corps
Him and Arthur Dexter Bradley were just out prowling around
He said "I saw two men running out they looked like middleweights
They jumped into a white car with out-of-state plates"
And Miss Patty Valentine just nodded her head
Cop said "Wait a minute boys this one's not dead"
So they took him to the infirmary
And though this man could hardly see
They told him that he could identify the guilty men.


Four in the morning and they haul Rubin in
Take him to the hospital and they bring him upstairs
The wounded man looks up through his one dying eye
Says "Wha'd you bring him in here for ? He ain't the guy !"
Yes here comes the story of the Hurricane
The man the authorities came to blame
For something that he never done
Put in a prison cell but one time he could-a been
The champion of the world.


Four months later the ghettos are in flame
Rubin's in South America fighting for his name
While Arthur Dexter Bradley's still in the robbery game
And the cops are putting the screws to him looking for somebody to blame
"Remember that murder that happened in a bar ?"
"Remember you said you saw the getaway car?"
"You think you'd like to play ball with the law ?"
"Think it might-a been that fighter you saw running that night ?"
"Don't forget that you are white".


Arthur Dexter Bradley said "I'm really not sure"
Cops said "A boy like you could use a break
We got you for the motel job and we're talking to your friend Bello
Now you don't wanta have to go back to jail be a nice fellow
You'll be doing society a favor
That sonofabitch is brave and getting braver
We want to put his ass in stir
We want to pin this triple murder on him
He ain't no Gentleman Jim".


Rubin could take a man out with just one punch
But he never did like to talk about it all that much
It's my work he'd say and I do it for pay
And when it's over I'd just as soon go on my way
Up to some paradise
Where the trout streams flow and the air is nice
And ride a horse along a trail
But then they took him to the jailhouse
Where they try to turn a man into a mouse.


All of Rubin's cards were marked in advance
The trial was a pig-circus he never had a chance
The judge made Rubin's witnesses drunkards from the slums
To the white folks who watched he was a revolutionary bum
And to the black folks he was just a crazy nigger
No one doubted that he pulled the trigger
And though they could not produce the gun
The DA said he was the one who did the deed
And the all-white jury agreed.


Rubin Carter was falsely tried
The crime was murder 'one' guess who testified
Bello and Bradley and they both baldly lied
And the newspapers they all went along for the ride
How can the life of such a man
Be in the palm of some fool's hand ?
To see him obviously framed
Couldn't help but make me feel ashamed to live in a land
Where justice is a game.


Now all the criminals in their coats and their ties
Are free to drink martinis and watch the sun rise
While Rubin sits like Buddha in a ten-foot cell
An innocent man in a living hell
That's the story of the Hurricane
But it won't be over till they clear his name
And give him back the time he's done
Put him in a prison cell but one time he could-a been
The champion of the world.


- Bob Dylan

For Rubin "Hurricane" Carter (May 6, 1937 – April 20, 2014)

[Larry Robinson]

We Have A Beautiful Mother


We have a beautiful
Mother
Her hills
Are buffaloes
Her buffaloes
Hills.
We have a beautiful
Mother
Her oceans
Are wombs
Her wombs
Oceans.
We have a beautiful
Mother
Her teeth
The white stones
At the edge
Of the water
The summer
Grasses
Her plentiful
Hair.
We have a beautiful
Mother
Her green lap
Immense
Her brown embrace
Eternal
Her blue body
Everything we know.


- Alice Walker

[Larry Robinson]

Water Table


It is on dry sunny days like this one that I find myself
thinking about the enormous body of water
that lies under this house,
cool, unseen reservoir,
silent except for the sounds of dripping
and the incalculable shifting
of all the heavy darkness that it holds.
This is the water that our well was dug to sip
and lift to where we live,
water drawn up and falling on our bare shoulders,
water filling the inlets of our mouths,
water in a pot on the stove.
The house is nothing now but a blueprint of pipes,
a network of faucets, nozzles, and spigots,
and even outdoors where light pierces the air
and clouds fly over the canopies of trees,
my thoughts flow underground
trying to imagine the cavernous scene.
Surely it is no pool with a colored ball
floating on the blue surface.
No grotto where a king would have
his guests rowed around in swan-shaped boats.
Between the dark lakes where the dark rivers flow
there is no ferry waiting on the shore of rock
and no man holding a long oar,
ready to take your last coin.
This is the real earth and the real water it contains.
But some nights, I must tell you,
I go down there after everyone has fallen asleep.
I swim back and forth in the echoing blackness.
I sing a love song as well as I can,
lost for a while in the home of the rain.
- Billy Collins