Patrick R

(Please ignore the periods at the beginning of L13. I had to use them to preserve spacing.)

ALL STRAPPED IN

(for J. A.)

turtle wax turtle wax and wane

don't make me wear a shell for the dress code

though I might take my cymbals to the party

where we'll crash and bang to build

housing for our depression codes

who has a guitar to wield?

spike the volume to add a dimension

to that area code where you yourself will wire

all this noise is grooving me a headache

I’m still scraped by all the padlocks that need

needle-sharp keys to get me

out of solitary.

......................... Prescription: Codeine

touts the sheet music lining the bird

cages and yes their wings are clipped

Bloomin' Mistin' Molly and Bleedin' Foggin' Sam

still sing C chanties and D minor miracles

and stationed screeches on freeways potholed

and titanic crackles and blowings-out over relays

we cannot let them have the last word

did anyone say they had words

why does a chromosome resemble the epiglottis,

why leave my pipe open when I don't want it

swept out, chimney swept out, smoked

out, smoke

the signal of doubt

strike the handle that feeds you and let yourself out

© 2008 by Patrick B. Robbins

AWAKE

you touch the warmdark

grain of your doors

you think they will yield

warmth

they are cool to the touch

the feeling is the yield of good

cutting and finishing

in the open

casket the dead body will

look warm

if the artisan yields

to teachings of craft

caskets no more

reveal their grain

why

shouldn't the cold body look cold

(c) 2007 by Patrick B. Robbins

CAREERS

To usher in a fresher act.

To mold disparate artifacts

from shapeless days. To leave intact

the severest flaw of the heroic.

To live in every age of the Cenozoic.

To make fact emotive and emotion stoic.

To show that grief

is only overblown belief

in someone else. To sleeve

the record of our mourning.

To play it later as a warning

or a tract permitting yearning

for what's found and lost with the coming of the new.

To remember never to eschew

anything just because it's been eschewed already. You.

To live above the whirlpool of a toilet,

depositing a riddle or regret

in every eddy. To find love's wallet

and return it. To pickle tension

in a clear, unbloodied potion.

To inject commotion

where ease has stunted growth. To prove

we cannot love

ourselves without our selves.

To learn no answers from the stars.

(c) 2007 by Patrick B. Robbins

(Please ignore the periods at the start of some of the lines. I had to include them to preserve the spacing.)

UPWIND SUNNYSIDE DOWNS

At the end of the shagged hall wood doors. At one

your bare wrist moves in its way to move the knob in its way.

Balks. Without sound sounding

............for oil, yes then the wind

............fall of forests to swing

............away like a smooth

............outcrop of fist then

............and then another

............bank of air to

............settle free at first

............glance space

............—but that’s a wish foiled, an egg

stilled in the fridge for a plenty of time tabled.

But this room this time's stock stopped

by a knob not moved; hairs on the wrist at rest

get greased by air vented

from a baseboard holed.

From down there your eye high-wired

looks like an egg unshelled yet mottled.

Only the hard-boiled play up there

with the apparatus. Or maybe the poached.

Your midstepping, midfingering act

in a pinch? Only nets are the rugging

and the door. Both are dewed with an odor

distilled like coughs from traffic

snarled with strict routes.

The carpet shifts.

A generation of wood is shoved.

At the refrigerator handle is a hand gloved.

© 2008, Patrick B. Robbins

If you'd like, feel free to divide your answer into English-language and foreign-language poets.

If you'd like, please feel free to divide your answer into English-language poets and foreign-language poets.

--------------------------------------------------------

awake

you

touch the warmdark

grain of your doors

you think they will yield

warmth

they are cool to the touch

the feeling is the yield of good

cutting and finishing

in the open

casket the dead body will

look warm

if the artisan yields

to teachings of craft

caskets no more

reveal their grain

why

shouldn't the cold body look cold

(c) 2008 by Patrick B. Robbins