Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

[Larry Robinson]

Arches National Park


the parthenon before Greece in stone
the Colliseum before Rome in stone
royalty waiting at a bus stop in stone
george washington from mars in stone
abandoned ancient ships from the future buried in stone
cities in stone, lost technologies in stone
petrified dunes on an impossible beach
a drug-induced carnival ride in stone
fantasy feral felines in stone
fins from an ocean of extinction in stone
silent prows moored in a sandstone marina
harbor seals in stone, elephants, jaguars
a leviathan's jaw in stone
alien deities, mad carvings, unfinished temples in stone
weathered hieroglyphs in sheer rockfaces
Giza as childsplay in stone
the pinched faces of slumbering giants in stone
God's sandcastle in stone
the universal secrets of flesh, of love, of desire
our softest places folding outward and inward in stone
conestoga wagons in stone heading across the plain
beehives in stone
wrinkles, creases, cracks, impossible arcs of air and water
the balancing act of thunder and lightning in stone
the Courthouse in stone standing for Truth
the One Law standing against our hubris
our feeble monuments to facility
our delusional ideal of permanence
in this place we know nothing of time


- Gary Horvitz

[Larry Robinson]

A Conversation with God
Hello God.
I think it's time for you and me
to have a little chat.
You know, I've prayed
year after year
for forgiveness
and in Your kindness,
You have always loved and forgiven me,
even though I keep making mistakes..

But here, today, while I am quiet -
alone with You
and with my prayers
alone with my heart.
God, I want to hear
Your voice.

Now, Eternal One,
ii Your Omnipotence
Tell me the good things
You know about me.
Tell me
about the times my smile
brought smiles to others;
when my words brought love
to another;
The times my "please" and "thank you"
brightened someone's day.

And Holy One,
while You are telling me these good things,
while You have forgiven me,
Dear, Sweet, Loving God.
Teach me to forgive
myself.

- Marylou Shira Hadditt

[Larry Robinson]

Cold Solace

When my mother died,
one of her honey cakes remained in the freezer.
I couldn’t bear to see it vanish,
so it waited, pardoned,
in its ice cave behind the metal trays
for two more years.

On my forty-first birthday
I chipped it out,
a rectangular resurrection,
hefted the dead weight in my palm.

Before it thawed,
I sawed, with serrated knife,
the thinnest of slices —
Jewish Eucharist.

The amber squares
with their translucent panes of walnuts
tasted — even toasted — of freezer,
of frost,
a raisined delicacy delivered up
from a deli in the underworld.

I yearned to recall life, not death —
the still body in her pink nightgown on the bed,
how I lay in the shallow cradle of the scattered sheets
after they took it away,
inhaling her scent one last time.

I close my eyes, savor a wafer of
sacred cake on my tongue and
try to taste my mother, to discern
the message she baked in these loaves
when she was too ill to eat them:

I love you.
It will end.
Leave something of sweetness
and substance
in the mouth of the world.

- Anna Belle Kaufman

[Larry Robinson]

Sweet Fate




We were talking about fate,
the choices we made—
or didn’t—
How, given another chance,
we’d start out the same
but would somehow come to different ends.
It’s a useless exercise,
measuring fate,
when its sugar has already dissolved
in our tea
the cup drained
years ago.


They delivered polio vaccines
in sugar, too,
remember?
The cubes were
stained red
by the medicine.
The whole family lined up for it—
even Pop—
the whole neighborhood,
a line around the school,
saving us all
the hell of a horrible fate.


Interventions are possible;
stay optimistic,
if you can.
I say this for my own benefit
as much as yours.


Would it only be ten years later—
less?—
sugar cubes
would hold a different kind of medicine?
clear on the outside,
tilting the angles on the in,
altering
a generation’s course.


It’s always been that way, you know,
the old make way for the new,
even when the new aren’t ready,
nor the old.


A few stimulants
to get the ball rolling
is all it takes.


If I had it to do again,
I’d be a comedian,
preach the gospel of laughing till it hurts,
Or a rabbi,
sell used stories
to old car salesmen,
Or an agnostic poet
who writes everyday
about almost nothing
except God
and gets no investment tax credits
for his efforts.

I’d go back to college, too,
find Jesus,
Krishna,
Buddha,
study art
science
sex
geography
Fate.


Maybe if I plotted a trajectory,
an actual career path,
I’d end up
in Rome
rabbi to the Pope.
Shake things up in Washington, too.
And why not Jerusalem while I’m at it?
And Pyongyong, as well!


Anything is possible
if fate gives you a push,
and there’s enough something in the sugar
to instigate the dream.


- Gary Turchin

[Larry Robinson]

Act of Union
I


To-night, a first movement, a pulse,

As if the rain in bogland gathered head

To slip and flood: a bog-burst,

A gash breaking open the ferny bed.

Your back is a firm line of eastern coast

And arms and legs are thrown

Beyond your gradual hills. I caress

The heaving province where our past has grown.

I am the tall kingdom over your shoulder

That you would neither cajole nor ignore.

Conquest is a lie. I grow older

Conceding your half-independent shore

Within whose borders now my legacy

Culminates inexorably.


II


And I am still imperially

Male, leaving you with pain,

The rending process in the colony,

The battering ram, the boom burst from within.

The act sprouted an obstinate fifth column

Whose stance is growing unilateral.

His heart beneath your heart is a war-drum

Mustering force. His parasitical

And ignorant little fists already

Beat at your borders and I know they're cocked

At me across the water. No treaty

I foresee will salve completely your tracked

And stretch-marked body, the big pain

That leaves you raw, like opened ground, again
- Seamus Heaney




(In 1975's Act Of Union, Seamus Heaney took the map of Britain and Ireland and turned it into an image of a married couple lying in bed together, Ireland surrounded and mastered by the masculine Britain.The Act Of Union, he said once before reading the poem, was both a political and a sexual concept."To put it metaphorically, and yet historically, Ireland, the feminine country, was entered by England, possessed by England, planted with English seed, withdrawn from by England, and left pregnant with an independent life called Ulster, kicking within her."He sometimes despaired of his fellow-citizens in the North. In an ITV documentary made at about this time he said: "We're a society, if you like, that's fallen from grace. This is limbo land at best, and at worst the country of the damned.")

[gardenmaniac]

I thank Gary for writing, and Larry for posting this gem. I especially love the thought of measuring anything,

"... when its sugar has already dissolved in our tea, the cup drained years ago."

Sweet Fate




We were talking about fate,
the choices we made—
or didn’t—
How, given another chance,
we’d start out the same
but would somehow come to different ends.
It’s a useless exercise,
measuring fate,
when its sugar has already dissolved
in our tea
the cup drained
years ago.


They delivered polio vaccines
in sugar, too,
remember?
The cubes were
stained red
by the medicine.
The whole family lined up for it—
even Pop—
the whole neighborhood,
a line around the school,
saving us all
the hell of a horrible fate.


Interventions are possible;
stay optimistic,
if you can.
I say this for my own benefit
as much as yours.


Would it only be ten years later—
less?—
sugar cubes
would hold a different kind of medicine?
clear on the outside,
tilting the angles on the in,
altering
a generation’s course.


It’s always been that way, you know,
the old make way for the new,
even when the new aren’t ready,
nor the old.


A few stimulants
to get the ball rolling
is all it takes.


If I had it to do again,
I’d be a comedian,
preach the gospel of laughing till it hurts,
Or a rabbi,
sell used stories
to old car salesmen,
Or an agnostic poet
who writes everyday
about almost nothing
except God
and gets no investment tax credits
for his efforts.

I’d go back to college, too,
find Jesus,
Krishna,
Buddha,
study art
science
sex
geography
Fate.


Maybe if I plotted a trajectory,
an actual career path,
I’d end up
in Rome
rabbi to the Pope.
Shake things up in Washington, too.
And why not Jerusalem while I’m at it?
And Pyongyong, as well!


Anything is possible
if fate gives you a push,
and there’s enough something in the sugar
to instigate the dream.


- Gary Turchin

[Larry Robinson]

The Second Coming


Turning and turning on the widening gyre,
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.


Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: Somewhere in the sands of the desert
A shape with a lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again, but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?


- William Butler Yeats

[Larry Robinson]

Before Evil


Before evil
my own goodness shrinks
before self-righteousness
my voice quavers
before those who know an angry God
with contempt for life
I tremble,
before those who hold
in their minds, in their hands
the lives of others
in hostage for their own,
before absolute Right
I am wrong
I am naked
without weapons
except for this determination
not to be defeated, but instead
to affirm the best in us,
to acknowledge our own power
to survive against whatever odds
and to seize the day
for love, for beauty, for humanity,
to make this day and the days following,
not theirs, not made by those who destroy,
but our own. We are the builders.
This day is in our hands.


- Doug Stout

[Larry Robinson]

Restless


I am here, oh Lord,
Command me.
But wait. Before you say anything,
I have an idea.
Let's say that this certain thing is
the divine manifestation
of your Will.
You know it's True.
What's that? Oh. Of course. Sorry.
I'll listen now.
But you know it's a good idea!
How could it not be?
I mean, ultimately yours, right?
What? Yes. You're rights. Sorry.
I'll be quiet now.
But then, You see
(I mean of course You see)
in serving this certain thing I would be
serving You!
I know. I'll settle down now.
See. I'm being still. Oh Lord,
Command me.
I'm ready this time.
Really.
But you know, I've been thinking. . .


- Chris Caswell

[Larry Robinson]

Fire On The Hills


The deer were bounding like blown leaves
Under the smoke in front of the roaring wave of the brushfire;
I thought of the smaller lives that were caught.
Beauty is not always lovely; the fire was beautiful, the terror
Of the deer was beautiful; and when I returned
Down the black slopes after the fire had gone by, an eagle
Was perched on the jag of a burnt pine,
Insolent and gorged, cloaked in the folded storms of his shoulders.
He had come from far off for good hunting
With fire for his beater to drive the game; the sky was merciless
Blue and the hills merciless black,
The somber-feathered great bird sleepily merciless between them.
I thought, painfully, but the whole mind,
The destruction that brings an eagle from heaven is better than mercy.

- Robinson Jeffers

[Larry Robinson]

For Tom Sharp


Once there was a time when it was necessary
to remove ourselves from nature. Once.
To distinguish, to see within
these selves is the objective. It's second nature


now. This chain-of-being buried
& nearly forgotten. Paved over in sediment
like walled in cities, lessons in childhood,
other experiences qualified or in need of


the missing link. "Man is held highest on Earth
& below the Angels." The intention:
toward God. Then later, toward a controlled state -
technology. The competition is fierce


& it is not. An Angel (many?) who inhabits
the rock suggests you skip its flat surface
on the river. Interfacing the world of eyes,
you pick it up: sentient self awareness


beyond the organs of particularity. Yes, you are
the rock & each plant & animal whose dust
compresses here. A moment of your time.
It is easiest to relate to the air. You fill of it.


& who & what it has been wears your blood
like a coat - becoming it, becoming warm.
You begin to see the choices, how desire determines
the who of you. The chain dissolves into Angels.


You skip the rock across the river, letting go.
We have become both worlds now.


- Bill Vartnaw

[tashee]

This is an astonishing poem-- I would like to see more poems from Mr. Vartnaw. I'm not familiar with his work, but I would like to be.

For Tom Sharp


Once there was a time when it was necessary
to remove ourselves from nature. Once.
To distinguish, to see within
these selves is the objective. It's second nature


now. This chain-of-being buried
& nearly forgotten. Paved over in sediment
like walled in cities, lessons in childhood,
other experiences qualified or in need of


the missing link. "Man is held highest on Earth
& below the Angels." The intention:
toward God. Then later, toward a controlled state -
technology. The competition is fierce


& it is not. An Angel (many?) who inhabits
the rock suggests you skip its flat surface
on the river. Interfacing the world of eyes,
you pick it up: sentient self awareness


beyond the organs of particularity. Yes, you are
the rock & each plant & animal whose dust
compresses here. A moment of your time.
It is easiest to relate to the air. You fill of it.


& who & what it has been wears your blood
like a coat - becoming it, becoming warm.
You begin to see the choices, how desire determines
the who of you. The chain dissolves into Angels.


You skip the rock across the river, letting go.
We have become both worlds now.


- Bill Vartnaw

[Larry Robinson]

Song: The Kiss


We were walking through
A department store in Paris,
Escaping the rain,
The sort of French rain
That changes in intensity
If you look at it,
Then changes back if you don't.
You went to lingerie,
And I to electronics,
And then we met again. It was there
That you noticed them, in furnishings,
Relaxing on a couch, his arm
Draped around her shoulder.
She pecked him on the cheek.
He didn't seem to notice.
Practicing for marriage,
You said, a bit too wryly
I thought, then stared at them
With You. He was pompadoured,
Italian, rough and beautiful,
With muscles so prominent
They seemed to be tattooed,
And you must have felt a twinge
Moving up your throat
To your face, for it settled
Into a smile, half adoration,
Half resignation. And she, Italianate,
Shapely as that ivory statue
Pygmalian called "my virgin beauty,"
With hair so long and black
I could almost see myself
Reflected in it, and behind me
You watching me watching
Her small breasts move
Beneath her black t-shirt.
Then on we went, you to where
The silk scarves were,
All the rage that year,
And I to toys to see
What passed for toys those days,
And then we met again,
By the escalator, and out
The revolving doors we went,
Hand in hand, for this was Paris,
Where even the middle-aged
Will behave like young lovers
In the rain, waiting for bad weather
To bring them to their youth again.
And there they were, standing
In the rain that hadn't changed
For an hour. They were kissing,
Their tongues wrestling
In that eternal battle
No one wins or loses.
His hand was on her breast,
Cupping it; her hand on top of his,
As if to keep it there forever
Were a commitment they'd just now taken on.
And you said, laughing,
If you let me kiss him
I'll let you kiss her!
Then we set out again,
Hand in hand, thirty years married,
Across the busy Seine,
And then I was the one laughing,
And you, I thought for a moment
You were crying,
But it was only the rain in Paris,
Relentless and unchanging.
- Steve Orlen

[Larry Robinson]

Earth Prayer

O Endless Creator, Force of Life, Seat of the Unconscious, Dharma,
Atman, Ra, Qalb, Dear Center of our Love, Christlight, Yahweh, Allah,
Mawu, Mother of the Universe…

Let us, when swimming with the stream, become the stream…
Let us, when moving with the music, become the music…
Let us, when rocking the wounded, become the suffering..

Let us live deep enough till there is only one direction…
and slow enough till there is only the beginning of time…
and loud enough in our hearts till there is no need to speak…

Let us live for the grace beneath all we want,
let us see it in everything and everyone,
till we admit to the mystery that when I look deep enough into you,
I find me,
and when you dare to hear my fear in the recess of your heart,
you recognize it as your secret, which you thought no one else knew…

O let us embrace that unexpected moment of unity as the atom of God…
Let us have the courage to hold each other when we break and worship what unfolds…

O nameless spirit that is not done with us,
let us love without a net beyond the fear of death
until the speck of peace we guard so well becomes the world…

- Mark Nepo

[Larry Robinson]

Remembering the Big Bang


Before everything flew apart, separated,
it all happened at once. Spring ice storms
and summer thunderheads. Dead of winter
Gray ground and mockingbirds high


in the redwoods telling everyone their song
was wonderful, worth stealing. Time was compact,
pressed tight so that birth and death overlapped
and, at any moment, love happened over and over.


Inside there was no outside. The day
your mother threw your brother down
the backstairs isn't separate
From the afternoon, several years


From now, under a cloudless sky,
The Mediterranean folds you into
her turquoise, malachite embrace, returns
you to the dark, salty womb of beginnings.


Death, impersonal—even a daughter's,
love too, passion
on a starless Sonoran night
as the cicadas buzzed,


sleep a restless, burning dream.
Before the Big Bang, everything
Holy and secular,
A story and a history,


told, over and over and at once,
No words, spoken or sung.
No separation,
no one, no other.


- Rebecca del Rio

[Larry Robinson]

Exit Signs


Wherever I am I notice exit signs.
(Most seem to be printed in TIMES CAPITAL.)
I particularly like the lighted ones,
even though they can distract you from the movie.
The green ones are the most common,
although there are a fair number of red ones.
Once in a great while
you can see a luminous blue one,
glowing like a sapphire in the dark.
Even printed paper signs taped above a doorway
give me a warm feeling.


I must admit, though, that doors saying
“Emergency Exit Only!” give me pause.
When you open them, all kinds of things happen:
lights flash, bells and sirens go off
and people get very upset.
Sometimes they yell at you or
threaten to eject you from the premises.
I open them anyway.


But my favorite exit sign
is the story of Shakyamuni
who planted himself under the bo tree
vowing to sit until he awakened -
and kept his vow!
That one shines like a beacon
through the darkest night.


- Larry Robinson

[Larry Robinson]

Quest For Truth


I see it was always
impossible.
By Grace I knew
You suddenly
in a room one day.

As soon as I stepped
out of that room, I stepped
back into myself


and 42 years later,
I laugh that I ever
donned the visored helmet,
picked up my lance and
mounted my donkey Rosinante


to go out in
this world of whizzing steelt
to try and follow You.


I laugh, and
go on trying.


- Max Reif

[poetrytalks]

Hi Larry,
Thank you for this. I have an exit sign story. Years back I was flying to Phoenix
and had a choice of seats. I thought, is there divine order as to whether it
is my "time to exit", so I can leave it up to destiny? Or-should I choose a seat
near the exit, so I could get out quickly. I don't know if it was a practice then
for the passenger by the sign to help everyone get out. I was not aware of it
if so. I decided to "play it safe" and picked a seat at one of the exits. When
the plane rumbled to a start, the exit sign fell off and landed on my head.
Divine leela for sure.
Sher

Exit Signs


Wherever I am I notice exit signs.
(Most seem to be printed in TIMES CAPITAL.)
I particularly like the lighted ones,
even though they can distract you from the movie.
The green ones are the most common,
although there are a fair number of red ones.
Once in a great while
you can see a luminous blue one,
glowing like a sapphire in the dark.
Even printed paper signs taped above a doorway
give me a warm feeling.


I must admit, though, that doors saying
“Emergency Exit Only!” give me pause.
When you open them, all kinds of things happen:
lights flash, bells and sirens go off
and people get very upset.
Sometimes they yell at you or
threaten to eject you from the premises.
I open them anyway.


But my favorite exit sign
is the story of Shakyamuni
who planted himself under the bo tree
vowing to sit until he awakened -
and kept his vow!
That one shines like a beacon
through the darkest night.


- Larry Robinson

[Larry Robinson]

A Thousand Little Irritants


The way mail piles up
the way we argue
the way we fail
and keep failing
the way we age
and carry grudges
the way we hurt ourselves
and each other
the way we smell
or others smell
the way we have to wait
the way we have to hurry
the way no one cares
the way we don’t care
the way our government doesn’t understand
the way our understanding doesn’t matter
the way we live or don’t live
the way we die
or will die

and tomorrow
the Sun
like a giant ball of wonder
will bounce up
happy and yellow
inventing each day
like it’s the only thing that matters


- Gary Turchin

[Larry Robinson]

An Autumn Sunset
I

Leaguered in fire
The wild black promontories of the coast extend
Their savage silhouettes;
The sun in universal carnage sets,
And, halting higher,
The motionless storm-clouds mass their sullen threats,
Like an advancing mob in sword-points penned,
That, balked, yet stands at bay.
Mid-zenith hangs the fascinated day
In wind-lustrated hollows crystalline,
A wan Valkyrie whose wide pinions shine
Across the ensanguined ruins of the fray,
And in her hand swings high o’erhead,
Above the waster of war,
The silver torch-light of the evening star
Wherewith to search the faces of the dead.

II

Lagooned in gold,
Seem not those jetty promontories rather
The outposts of some ancient land forlorn,
Uncomforted of morn,
Where old oblivions gather,
The melancholy unconsoling fold
Of all things that go utterly to death
And mix no more, no more
With life’s perpetually awakening breath?
Shall Time not ferry me to such a shore,
Over such sailless seas,
To walk with hope’s slain importunities
In miserable marriage? Nay, shall not
All things be there forgot,
Save the sea’s golden barrier and the black
Close-crouching promontories?
Dead to all shames, forgotten of all glories,
Shall I not wander there, a shadow’s shade,
A spectre self-destroyed,
So purged of all remembrance and sucked back
Into the primal void,
That should we on the shore phantasmal meet
I should not know the coming of your feet?


- Edith Wharton

[Larry Robinson]

First Rain


The first day of rain

should be declared
a natural holiday.


All stops, somehow.
A new season so simply turns.


All is immediate.
The instant of first wet on skin.
Sounds dance and mingle.
Soils, leaves, muddy waters
blend into deeply breathed
fragrances, become a
raw tonic
gone far too long.


We go through the day
cocooned.
A fire perhaps,
and time to enjoy it,
if we are lucky.


There's something Sunday
about the first day of rain,
suspended between
today and
forever.


Memories take us,
deeper than words.
Further back than
recall can bring us.
Leave us off to
wander further beyond thought
to pure feeling,
back to some safety
of somewhere we
seem to have
lost.


Close the shops,
silence the clocks.
It's the first day of rain.


- Scott O'Brien

[Larry Robinson]

Making Porridge



Soak dried apricots to expand
and meet the day; toast oats
to drive out the rancid; add
milk for the moisture of life;
a dash of salt for rock-bottom support;
a handful of blueberries― their star-like
openings touching our origins. Peel an
apple for nakedness of soul, and bow
to its core, whose seeds of wisdom
can be tapped as needed.


Bring all these to a slow simmer.
Let them bubble and mingle
well to give of their sweetness.


Sprinkle wheatgerm from their
fields of brown waves; yogurt to foster
bovine patience. Cradle the bowl.
Enjoy its warmth and wafting scents.
Chew carefully to overcome
a lifetime of hurrying.


Choose your own way
and whether it tastes bitter
or sweet, embrace it!
- Raphael Block

[ronliskey]

"Natural Holliday" That's brilliant!

First Rain
The first day of rain
should be declared
a natural holiday.

[Larry Robinson]

This Earth, My Brother


The dawn crack of sounds known
rending our air
shattering our temples toppling
raising earthwards our cathedrals of hope,
in demand of lives offered on those altars
for the cleansing that was done long ago.
Within the airwaves we carry
our hutted entrails; and we pray;
shrieks abandoned by lonely road-sides
as the gunmen’s boots tramp.
I lift up the chalice of hyssop and tears
to touch the lips of the thirsty
sky-wailing in a million spires
of hate and death; we pray
bearing the single hope to shine
burnishing in the destiny of my race
that glinting sword of salvation.
In time my orchestra plays my music
from potted herbs of anemone and nim
pour upon the festering wounds of my race,
to wash forever my absorbent radiance
as we search our granary for new corn.
There was that miracle we hoped for
that salvation we longed for
for which we said many prayers
offered many offerings.

In the seasons of burning feet
of bad harvest and disastrous marriages
there burns upon the glint edge of that sword
the replica of the paschal knife.
The sounds rounded our lonely skies
among the nims the dancers gather their cloths
stretching their new-shorn hides off offered cows
to build themselves new drums.
Sky-wailing from afar the distant tramp
of those feet in rhythm
miming underneath them violence.
Along the roads lined with mimosas
the mangled and manacled are dragged
to the cheers of us all.
We strew flowers at the feet of the conquerors
beg for remission of our sins…

…He will come out of the grave
His clothes thrown around him;
worms shall not have done their work.
His face shall beam the radiance of many suns.
His gait the bearing of a victor,
On his forehead shall shine a thousand stars
he will kneel after the revelation
and die on this same earth.

And I pray
That my hills shall be exalted
And he who washes me,
breathes me
shall die.
They led them across the vastness
As they walked they tottered
and rose again. They walked
across the grassland to the edge of the mound
and knelt down in silent prayer;
they rose again led to the mound,
they crouched
like worshippers of Muhammed.
Suddenly they rose again
stretching their hands to the crowd
in wasteful gestures of identity
Boos and shrieks greeted them
as they smiled and waved
as those on a big boat journey.
A sudden silence fell
as the crowd pushed and yelled
into the bright sharp morning of a shooting.

They led them unto the mound
In a game of blindman’s bluff
they tottered to lean on the sandbags
Their backs to the ocean
that will bear them away.
The crackling report of brens
and the falling down;
a shout greeted them
tossing them into the darkness.

and my mountains reel and roll
to the world’s end.


- Kofi Awoonor
(1935-2013)

[Larry Robinson]

Aimless Love

This morning as I walked along the lakeshore,
I fell in love with a wren
and later in the day with a mouse
the cat had dropped under the dining table.

In the shadows of an autumn evening,

I fell for a seamstress
still at her machine in the tailor's window,
and later for a bowl of broth,
steam rising like smoke from a naval battle.

This is the best kind of love, I thought,
without recompense, without gifts,
or unkind words, without suspicion,
or silence on the telephone.

The love of the chestnut,
the jazz cap and one hand on the wheel.

No lust, no slam of the door --
the love of the miniature orange tree,
the clean white shirt, the hot evening shower,
the highway that cuts across Florida.

No waiting, no huffiness, or rancor --
just a twinge every now and then

for the wren who had built her nest
on a low branch overhanging the water
and for the dead mouse,
still dressed in its light brown suit.

But my heart is always propped up
in a field on its tripod,
ready for the next arrow.

After I carried the mouse by the tail
to a pile of leaves in the woods,
I found myself standing at the bathroom sink
gazing down affectionately at the soap,

so patient and soluble,
so at home in its pale green soap dish.
I could feel myself falling again
as I felt its turning in my wet hands
and caught the scent of lavender and stone.

- Billy Collins

[ronliskey]

This morning I fell in love with a poem.

Aimless Love

[ronliskey]

...at last the noble lifter lowered his life-long burden

--for a brief moment of guilt-ridden relief.

as he stretched his pain for the first time ever, he saw that he too had been leaning hard on others

--oh so hard.

humbly he gathered his burden again, it was lighter.

he no longer carried it alone. he never had.

the burden became his gift to the world

-- to all who had carried him for so long.

Which Are You?

[Larry Robinson]

One More Time


When willful, we think
that truth moves from
our head to our heart
to our hands.


But bent by life,
it becomes clear that
love moves the other way:
from our hands to our
heart to our head.


Ask the burn survivor
with no hands who dreams
of chopping peppers and
onions on a spring day.


Or the eighty-year-old jazz
man who loses his hands
in a fog. He can feel them
but no longer entice them
to their magic.


Or the thousand-year-old
Buddha with no arms
whose empty eyes will
not stop bowing to the
unseeable center.


Truth flows from us,
or so we think, only
to be thrown back
as a surf of love.


Ask the aging painter
with a brush taped to his
crippled hand—wanting,
needing to praise it all
one more time.


- Mark Nepo

[Larry Robinson]

Unvarnished


my mother said
when the morning sky is pink
the circus will come to town

my mother never explained
moon splattered stories
laid out frame by frame
edges smoothed and tucked away

my mother never believed
the hazy terrain of
theories
predictions

diagnoses

my mother trusted
life's murky plot
held in service
of an unvarnished reality

my mother expected
night to fall hard
the circus
to move on

- Les Bernstein

[Larry Robinson]

Epitaph
When I die
Give what's left of me away
To children
And old men that wait to die.

And if you need to cry,
Cry for your brother
Walking the street beside you.
And when you need me,
Put your arms
Around anyone
And give them
What you need to give to me.

I want to leave you something,
Something better
Than words
Or sounds.

Look for me
In the people I've known
Or loved,
And if you cannot give me away,
At least let me live on in your eyes
And not on your mind.

You can love me most
By letting
Hands touch hands,
By letting
Bodies touch bodies,
And by letting go
Of children
That need to be free.

Love doesn't die,
People do.
So, when all that's left of me
Is love,

Give me away.


- Merrit Malloy