Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

[Larry Robinson]

Mary

Mary you're covered in roses, you're covered in ashes
You're covered in rain
You're covered in babies, you're covered in slashes
You're covered in wilderness, you're covered in stains
You cast aside the sheet, you cast aside the shroud
Of another man, who served the world proud
You greet another son, you lose another one
On some sunny day and always stay, Mary

Jesus says Mother I couldn't stay another day longer
Fly's right by me and leaves a kiss upon her face
While the angels are singin' his praises in a blaze of glory
Mary stays behind and starts cleaning up the place

Mary she moves behind me
She leaves her fingerprints everywhere
Every time the snow drifts, every time the sand shifts
Even when the night lifts, she's always there

Jesus said Mother I couldn't stay another day longer
Fly's right by me and leaves a kiss upon her face
While the angels are singin' his praises in a blaze of glory
Mary stays behind and starts cleaning up the place

Mary you're covered in roses, you're covered in ruin
you're covered in secrets
You're covered in treetops, you're covered in birds
who can sing a million songs without any words
You cast aside the sheets, you cast aside the shroud
of another man, who served the world proud
You greet another son, you lose another one
on some sunny day and always stay
Mary, Mary, Mary

- Andrea Bertolini

[Larry Robinson]

All the Road Signs

Are in people's eyes,
The driver said after
Winning at Chicken.
The passenger terrified
Wonders at narrow streets
Designed for walking
Clogged with cars,
Men, backs bent under bundles
Women, baskets top their heads
Not teetering, but gliding
As the women do.

In a world
Where Fate rules,
No worries.
My time or yours
Who yields
Who moves forward
The road signs
In our eyes.

- Rebecca del Rio

[Larry Robinson]

A Timbered Choir

Even while I dreamed I prayed that what I saw was only fear and no foretelling,
for I saw the last known landscape destroyed for the sake
of the objective, the soil bludgeoned, the rock blasted.
Those who had wanted to go home would never get there now.

I visited the offices where for the sake of the objective the planners planned
at blank desks set in rows. I visited the loud factories
where the machines were made that would drive ever forward
toward the objective. I saw the forest reduced to stumps and gullies; I saw
the poisoned river, the mountain cast into the valley;
I came to the city that nobody recognized because it looked like every other city.
I saw the passages worn by the unnumbered
footfalls of those whose eyes were fixed upon the objective.

Their passing had obliterated the graves and the monuments
of those who had died in pursuit of the objective
and who had long ago forever been forgotten, according
to the inevitable rule that those who have forgotten forget
that they have forgotten. Men, women, and children now pursued the objective
as if nobody ever had pursued it before.

The races and the sexes now intermingled perfectly in pursuit of the objective.
the once-enslaved, the once-oppressed were now free
to sell themselves to the highest bidder
and to enter the best paying prisons
in pursuit of the objective, which was the destruction of all enemies,
which was the destruction of all obstacles, which was the destruction of all objects,
which was to clear the way to victory, which was to clear the way to promotion, to salvation, to progress,
to the completed sale, to the signature
on the contract, which was to clear the way
to self-realization, to self-creation, from which nobody who ever wanted to go home
would ever get there now, for every remembered place
had been displaced; the signposts had been bent to the ground and covered over.

Every place had been displaced, every love
unloved, every vow unsworn, every word unmeant
to make way for the passage of the crowd
of the individuated, the autonomous, the self-actuated, the homeless
with their many eyes opened toward the objective
which they did not yet perceive in the far distance,
having never known where they were going,
having never known where they came from.

- Wendell Berry

[Larry Robinson]

Mother Drum

The new day opens in truck rumble
and a scatter of chickadee song
Clusters of fruit sing at my window
lemony airs in the Key of Light
sun waking the leaves
sweeping long shadows from the grass
igniting each parched blade

Each blade is a beat of the Mother drum
pulsing her rhythms of birth and rebirth
the earth, the water, the light, the air
pulsing morning, pulsing mourning
for a four-year old, for her mother
as murder moves on

And everywhere, in this world on fire
the missing beats … the lost wing tribes
the wild fur tribes
so certain, so silent, so pouncing swift
the bee tribes lost to the honey-bloom

Still the living pulse calls … and calls
and I don’t know if trust is Grace
or a chord the heart hears
a galaxy chord of dust and stars,
of miracle rains and warm breath

My friend Alan tells me nobody apprehends
that the We can know and the I can not

I think he must mean the legacy I
Europe’s conqueror, lonely, angry I
locked into self serving selves
feeding the fires of violence
grave over grave
families grieving
refugee storm clouds flashing

And I ask you, what is left us now
but to trust the We, the knowing We
to enter each day holding hands
singing in the Key of Praise
singing care for all Being
singing for equality and kindness
singing forgiveness and mercy
singing the harmonies that bind us

- Cynthia Poten

[Larry Robinson]

For the Anniversary of My Death

Every year without knowing it I have passed the day
When the last fires will wave to me
And the silence will set out
Tireless traveler
Like the beam of a lightless star

Then I will no longer
Find myself in life as in a strange garment
Surprised at the earth
And the love of one woman
And the shamelessness of men
As today writing after three days of rain
Hearing the wren sing and the falling cease
And bowing not knowing to what

- W. S. Merwin

[Larry Robinson]

A Day is Coming

A day is coming
in which misery will end.
A day is coming
in which poverty
will open bank accounts
in every nation.
A day is coming.
I hear it coming.
A day is coming
in which the
campesino
will gather his children a green spring
and go on vacations.
I believe it.
I see it.
A day is coming
in which a soldier will be
decorated
for helping
instead of killing
his poor brother.
A day is coming
in which lovers
will serve themselves from large bowls
warm love and faithfulness.
A day is coming
in which the Christ who returns
is the Christ who never left.
A day is coming
in which the father will ask the son
for friendship
instead of respect.
A day is coming
in which the student
and a poor laborer
will be half and half.
A day is coming
in which the prisoners
come out
running in the fields and shouting
about their freedom.
A day is coming,
I see it coming.

- Lalo Delgado

[Larry Robinson]

Nothing But

your smiling face on the frig
your little boy laughing there too
and the one curious eye of your girl
just a moment in time
am I missing it?
closest living relative
a shutter clicks inside
what’s been chasing me all evening
gash of sadness, siren wailing in my belly
four foods later, still gnawing
sleep dances away yet again

almost like a daughter
which makes me not a mother
mine told me too much
so i’m only wishing i could
tell you the whole story
open like the sky and pour
the whole truth down
but another fire calls
your name into the night
and my fuzzy-headed prayer
floats up and gently follows

you still have time and
the chance to connect the dots
the faces, the hearts
dangling in your field
while mine are moving
surely and quietly away
like the rapidly expanding
universe, i simply let go
surf the waves of uncertainty
pray for your future
and theirs

- Fran Carbonaro

[Larry Robinson]

Early August Evening

This time of year the grass
on these gentle uplands
is already dry
except for the green swale
bordered by blackberry and wild rose.

We're picking Gravensteins now
and the redwoods are beginning
to shed last year's needles
though the tomatoes are only
beginning to ripen.

On the savannah below
shadows lengthen
over the green carpet
beneath the valley oaks.
The main channel of the Laguna
carves a green meander lined
with tule and willow.

The fog is rolling in off the ocean
through the Petaluma gap
and circling north around
Sonoma Mountain and Sugar Loaf.

The small family of deer -
mother and two yearlings -
picks its way through cockleburrs
to the water's edge.

The egrets are making their evening commute
back to the pines on HIgh Street
to roost for the night.

I make my way up the swale
through pennyroyal,
ryegrass and spiders
to the source of all this
life-giving moisture:
the air conditioning unit
behind the hospital
condensing the vapor
of ten thousand breaths.

- Larry Robinson

[joybird]

Too funny.

Early August Evening

This time of year the grass
on these gentle uplands
is already dry
except for the green swale
bordered by blackberry and wild rose.

We're picking Gravensteins now
and the redwoods are beginning
to shed last year's needles
though the tomatoes are only
beginning to ripen.

On the savannah below
shadows lengthen
over the green carpet
beneath the valley oaks.
The main channel of the Laguna
carves a green meander lined
with tule and willow.

The fog is rolling in off the ocean
through the Petaluma gap
and circling north around
Sonoma Mountain and Sugar Loaf.

The small family of deer -
mother and two yearlings -
picks its way through cockleburrs
to the water's edge.

The egrets are making their evening commute
back to the pines on HIgh Street
to roost for the night.

I make my way up the swale
through pennyroyal,
ryegrass and spiders
to the source of all this
life-giving moisture:
the air conditioning unit
behind the hospital
condensing the vapor
of ten thousand breaths.

- Larry Robinson

[Larry Robinson]

It Is Surely Late August

It is surely late August and –
The leaves on the seedless concord grapevines
turned a bright yellow and lurid magenta
almost over night, or so it seems,
all grapes long since eaten one by one
by my daughter each day till only a few green stems remain.
A few leaves on the plum trees have turned bright yellow,
again it seems just over night and are ready to leave their perch,
the anise stalks have long since turned a dusty brown
with yellow seed heads full formed with seeds to fly here and there
on the first strong afternoon gusts.
The hills long since turned brown or golden
depending on preference or ideology.
and now crown of thorns are everywhere,
making progress across desiccated fields all too painful,
Flocks of Canada Geese pass loudly, heading south
each night and each day in more or less perfect ‘v’s
in formations of six, or eight or twelve.

The nights are just a bit colder,
these later summer days a bit less warm,
yet I know there will still be warm spells,
the strong heat of summer not relaxing its grip all at once
and there will be days to keep the fans turning all day,
keeping doors and windows tight shut
after the morning has advanced but a little.
Yet signs of autumn are to be heard and seen and felt -
only stand and listen,
only stand and see,
only stand and taste the breeze.

- Sam Doctors

[Larry Robinson]

For Women Who are Difficult to Love

you are a horse running alone
and he tries to tame you
compares you to an impossible highway
to a burning house
says you are blinding him
that he could never leave you
forget you
want anything but you
you dizzy him, you are unbearable
every woman before or after you
is doused in your name
you fill his mouth
his teeth ache with memory of taste
his body just a long shadow seeking yours
but you are always too intense
frightening in the way you want him
unashamed and sacrificial
he tells you that no man can live up to the one who
lives in your head
and you tried to change didn't you?
closed your mouth more
tried to be softer
prettier
less volatile, less awake
but even when sleeping you could feel
him travelling away from you in his dreams
so what did you want to do, love
split his head open?
you can't make homes out of human beings
someone should have already told you that
and if he wants to leave
then let him leave
you are terrifying
and strange and beautiful
something not everyone knows how to love.

- Warsaw Shire

[Roland Jacopetti]

Dump Him!

For Women Who are Difficult to Love

...he tells you that no man can live up to the one who
lives in your head
and you tried to change didn't you?
closed your mouth more
tried to be softer
prettier
less volatile, less awake
but even when sleeping you could feel
him travelling away from you in his dreams
so what did you want to do, love
split his head open?
...

[Larry Robinson]

Sonoma

On the path to the studio
tarweed sticks to my shoes
and in the warmth of late afternoon
releases its musky scent.
It is the smell of dry brown hills,
of horses sweet with sweat,
of dried manure and valley oak,
the bouquet of my childhood.

By the creek, nearly dry
from summer's drought,
the blue heron searches
for a small fish swimming
in the trickle that remains.
Hawks circle above,
wings carving the dry hot sky,
and a garden snake basks languorously
against the stone wall.

Once I was 12, then 20, now 60
And still the parched land binds me
to a distant history
of grasses blowing brown
in hot summer wind,
of cracked earth and lizards' skin
and the memory of my cheek
against the horse's warm neck
as I inhale her damp perfume.

- Emily Axelrod

[Larry Robinson]

The Iraqi Nights


In Iraq,
after a thousand and one nights,
someone will talk to someone else.

Markets will open
for regular customers.

Small feet will tickle
the giant feet of the Tigris.

Gulls will spread their wings
and no one will fire at them.

Women will walk the streets
without looking back in fear.

Men will give their real names
without putting their lives at risk.

Children will go to school
and come home again.

Chickens in the villages
won’t peck at human flesh
on the grass.

Disputes will take place
without any explosives.

A cloud will pass over cars
heading to work as usual.

A hand will wave
to someone leaving
or returning.

The sunrise will be the same
for those who wake
and those who never will.

And every moment
something ordinary
will happen
under the sun.

- Dunya Mikhail
(translated from the Arabic by Kareem James Abu-Zeid)

[Larry Robinson]

A Ritual to Read to Each OtherRelated Poem Content Details

If you don't know the kind of person I am
and I don't know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the
world
and following the wrong god home we may miss
our star.

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of
childhood
storming out to play through the broken dike.

And as elephants parade holding each
elephant's tail,
but if one wanders the circus won't find the
park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something
shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should
consider -
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the
dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to
sleep;
the signals we give - yes or no, or maybe -
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.

- William Stafford

[Larry Robinson]

Sacred Wine

Sit with the pain in your heart, he said.
Hold it like a sacred wine in a golden cup.
The wine may break you and if it does, let it.
To be human is to be broken,
and only from brokenness can
one be healed.
The ancestors say:
the world is full of pain,
and each is allotted a portion.
If you do not carry your share,
then others are forced to carry it for you,
And the suffering you bring to the world is your sin,
But the suffering you bring to yourself will be your hell.
Sit with the pain in your heart, he said.
Hold it there like a sacred wine in a golden cup.

- Greg Kimura

[Larry Robinson]

So, You Must Talk to the Woman Who Is Wearing Headphones

When a fish swims up to you with a barrel and rifle already attached, sometimes it almost feels wrong to go out of your way to shoot it. Nonetheless:

So it has come to this.
You must speak to the woman who is wearing headphones.
I am so, so sorry.
You must pray that she is single and looking and will wish to hear your words.
It is not enough for her to be single
She must also be looking, or there is no hope for you.

But you already know this.
You have seen what happened to the other men who tried to speak.
The whole Panera is littered with what remains of the men who came before you.
They tried to speak to the Woman Who Is Wearing Headphones.
They failed.
Remember the training and you may yet survive.
Remember what they told you.
You must be confident, relaxed and easygoing.
You must show no fear.
If you show fear, she will strike.
Speak calmly, they said.
Show confidence.
Do not blink.
If you blink, she will know.
If you blink, she will move from 1 to 1.5 meters away to much closer, so close that you can hear the whisper of what is in her headphones.
That is much too close.

You have no choice.
These are your instructions.

You can talk to anyone, you tell yourself.
It is only a woman, you tell yourself.
But you know that it is not.
Women were something different.
Your comrade made the awful mistake of talking to the Woman Who Is Reading A Book On The Subway. You watched it happen.
He made her look up from the book and her basilisk eyes fell on him, unblinking, and he melted.
You still remember the screams.
They were so horrible that the city lay awake for days trying to forget them.

You do not know how it happened.
But the women who stood there politely and were receptacles for your words are gone.
They once smiled politely and they laughed even and sometimes they would make a spark with you.
But something changed in the air or perhaps the water and the women do not stand there and listen any longer.
The city is full of men who have been turned to stone.
You opened the door to your neighbor’s apartment and there was a startled deer standing inside wearing a college sweatshirt. You think it used to be your neighbor but you are not certain.
You have changed your route to work so that you do not have to pass the stone men with their open, screaming mouths.

Yesterday half your comrades were ordered to shout “Smile!” at the Woman Who Is Walking.
And the woman did. Too wide.
So wide that her mouth engulfed the street and became a vast cavern.
Six of your friends were devoured.
You could hear the unladylike slurping sounds from blocks away as you beat a hasty retreat between the Scylla of the Woman Who Has Put Her Bag Next To Her On A Bar Stool and the Charybdis of the Woman Who Is Just Jogging.
You did not attempt to speak to either of them.
They passed you.
You were left unscathed.

But that was before they came to your apartment and gave you the orders.

So here you are.
It has come to this.

You are about to talk to the Woman in Headphones.
My God, I pity you.
You are close now. Almost in range.
Before The Woman and behind her the ground is littered with shoes and hats and pick-up manuals and AXE body spray.
She sits patiently gnawing on a thigh bone.
You do not think she is single or looking.
You cannot make out the words she is listening to.

You know how this will go.
You know what the headphones mean.
You know what will happen when you ask her to remove the headphones.


- Alexandra Petri

[REALnothings]

'bout says it, I think.

[JayS]

What a bizarre 'poem'. What is the meaning of this?

So, You Must Talk to the Woman Who Is Wearing Headphones

When a fish swims up to you with a barrel and rifle already attached, ...

[JayS]

'bout says what???

'bout says it, I think.

[Larry Robinson]

Scotland


It was a day peculiar to this piece of the planet
when larks rose on long thin strings of singing
and the air shifted with the shimmer of actual angels.

Greenness entered the body. The grasses
shivered with presences and sunlight
stayed like a halo on hair and heather and hills.
Walking into town, I saw, in a radiant raincoat,
the woman from the fish-shop. 'What a day it is!'
cried I, like a sunstruck madman.

And what did she have to say for it?
Her brow grew bleak, her ancestors raged in their graves
as she spoke with their ancient misery:

'We'll pay for it, we'll pay for it, we'll pay for it!'

- Alastair Reid

[kpage9]

um....finding this woman is as easy as shooting fish in a barrel??

What a bizarre 'poem'. What is the meaning of this?

[wisewomn]

OR Don't presume you can approach just any woman who takes your fancy and expect to be welcomed.

um....finding this woman is as easy as shooting fish in a barrel??

[Roland Jacopetti]

God, what a wonder of a poem!

Scotland


It was a day peculiar to this piece of the planet
when larks rose on long thin strings of singing
and the air shifted with the shimmer of actual angels.

Greenness entered the body. The grasses
shivered with presences and sunlight
stayed like a halo on hair and heather and hills.
Walking into town, I saw, in a radiant raincoat,
the woman from the fish-shop. 'What a day it is!'
cried I, like a sunstruck madman.

And what did she have to say for it?
Her brow grew bleak, her ancestors raged in their graves
as she spoke with their ancient misery:

'We'll pay for it, we'll pay for it, we'll pay for it!'

- Alastair Reid

[Larry Robinson]

Every Riven Thing

God goes, belonging to every riven thing he's made
sings his being simply by being
the thing it is:
stone and tree and sky,
man who sees and sings and wonders why
God goes. Belonging, to every riven thing he's made,
means a storm of peace.
Think of the atoms inside the stone.
Think of the man who sits alone
trying to will himself into a stillness where
God goes belonging. To every riven thing he's made
there is given one shade
shaped exactly to the thing itself:
under the tree a darker tree;
under the man the only man to see
God goes belonging to every riven thing. He's made
the things that bring him near,
made the mind that makes him go.
A part of what man knows,
apart from what man knows,
God goes belonging to every riven thing he’s made.

- Christian Wiman

[Larry Robinson]

AH

I want to love as deeply
As love allows
I want to fall into the center
Of a rose and see
And smell as much as I can
See and smell
I want to be trusted
My life at stake
Should I break loyalty
I want to dance
As high and rhythmically as
My body allows
I want to embrace
I want to sing
I want to find joy
In each moment
Something good to say
About the smallest thing
Gracias por la vida
Thank you for life
And breath
And the smile on my face

- Corlene Van Sluizer

[Roland Jacopetti]

Just doesn't get better than that.

Every Riven Thing

God goes, belonging to every riven thing he's made
sings his being simply by being
the thing it is:
stone and tree and sky,
man who sees and sings and wonders why
God goes. Belonging, to every riven thing he's made,
means a storm of peace.
Think of the atoms inside the stone.
Think of the man who sits alone
trying to will himself into a stillness where
God goes belonging. To every riven thing he's made
there is given one shade
shaped exactly to the thing itself:
under the tree a darker tree;
under the man the only man to see
God goes belonging to every riven thing. He's made
the things that bring him near,
made the mind that makes him go.
A part of what man knows,
apart from what man knows,
God goes belonging to every riven thing he’s made.

- Christian Wiman

[Larry Robinson]

The Joy of Writing

Why does this written doe bound through these written woods?
For a drink of written water from a spring
whose surface will xerox her soft muzzle?
Why does she lift her head; does she hear something?
Perched on four slim legs borrowed from the truth,
she pricks up her ears beneath my fingertips.
Silence - this word also rustles across the page
and parts the boughs
that have sprouted from the word "woods."

Lying in wait, set to pounce on the blank page,
are letters up to no good,
clutches of clauses so subordinate
they'll never let her get away.

Each drop of ink contains a fair supply
of hunters, equipped with squinting eyes behind their sights,
prepared to swarm the sloping pen at any moment,
surround the doe, and slowly aim their guns.

They forget that what's here isn't life.
Other laws, black on white, obtain.
The twinkling of an eye will take as long as I say,
and will, if I wish, divide into tiny eternities,
full of bullets stopped in mid-flight.
Not a thing will ever happen unless I say so.
Without my blessing, not a leaf will fall,
not a blade of grass will bend beneath that little hoof's full stop.

Is there then a world
where I rule absolutely on fate?
A time I bind with chains of signs?
An existence become endless at my bidding?

The joy of writing.
The power of preserving.
Revenge of a mortal hand.

- Wislawa Szymborska

[Larry Robinson]

The Big Heart

‘Too many things are occurring for even a big heart to hold.’ - W. B. Yeats

Big heart,
wide as a watermelon,
but wise as birth,
there is so much abundance
in the people I have:
Max, Lois, Joe, Louise,
Joan, Marie, Dawn,
Arlene, Father Dunne,
and all in their short lives
give to me repeatedly,
in the way the sea
places its many fingers on the shore,
again and again
and they know me,
they help me unravel,
they listen with ears made of conch shells,
they speak back with the wine of the best region.
They are my staff.
They comfort me.

They hear how
the artery of my soul has been severed
and soul is spurting out upon them,
bleeding on them,
messing up their clothes,
dirtying their shoes.
And God is filling me,
though there are times of doubt
as hollow as the Grand Canyon,
still God is filling me.
He is giving me the thoughts of dogs,
the spider in its intricate web,
the sun
in all its amazement,
and a slain ram
that is the glory,
the mystery of great cost,
and my heart,
which is very big,
I promise it is very large,
a monster of sorts,
takes it all in—
all in comes the fury of love.

- Anne Sexton

[Larry Robinson]

The Traveling Onion: A Poem

“It is believed that the onion originally came from India. In Egypt it was
an object of worship —why I haven't been able to find out. From Egypt
the onion entered Greece and on to Italy, thence into all of Europe.”
—Better Living Cookbook
When I think how far the onion has traveled
just to enter my stew today, I could kneel and praise
all small forgotten miracles,
crackly paper peeling on the drainboard,
pearly layers in smooth agreement,
the way the knife enters onion
and onion falls apart on the chopping block,
a history revealed.
And I would never scold the onion
for causing tears.
It is right that tears fall
for something small and forgotten.
How at meal, we sit to eat,
commenting on texture of meat or herbal aroma
but never on the translucence of onion,
now limp, now divided,
or its traditionally honorable career:
For the sake of others,
disappear.

- Naomi Shihab Nye