POEM: "On The Hiding Mind"

On The Hiding Mind

Lord, Lord
artifice, doubt
hesitation, impossibility
inadequacy, incompletion
limitations, mistrust
self-dismissal, the incompletely
knowable, the unsayable
and the unreadable
sounds like a normal day
in the salt mines
rattle those chains
and spin the opposite way
maybe we get somewhere.


© 2010 Rob Schackne

A Gary Metras Poem

Anonymous Donation

 
It got to twenty-seven below that winter,
which is harsh for Massachusetts,
even as far west as the hills near Pittsfield.

I mixed stucco that week, by hand.
The mixing bed was splashed with ice.
We set it on the cement floor of a large box.

The box became a luxury condominium.
With every third pull of the hoe, I rested,
to let the lungs thaw, to exhale a cloud

and waste a moment watching my crystal breath.
Such scenery would never be framed
And hung on these walls when finished.

So I mixed it into the stucco.
And quit the job.

 

From "Working Words",
Edited by  M.L. Liebler (2010)

POEM: "To My Future Lover (1)"

To My Future Lover (1)

Way back then, before
I stood there and looked
and received the summons
to pour this one from my heart
into the forgiving shape of yours,
when sleep was troublesome plots
that woke me to a smoke and brandy
then up again an hour later
undistanced by memory,
distraught of my own concerns
delinquent of most others
every animal loves its own smell
but that will be taken to an extreme --
disturbed by what it meant
dishevelled in the mirage
distracted, always distracted
that I should limit my desire
in the dispirit of these times...
a kiss, a kiss didn’t even matter
all love was in the shadows
the sun did not light every caress
time would never wait for long
everything a brave dance in the dark.

© 2010 Rob Schackne

POEM: "To Pessoa"

To Pessoa

Damn your orthonym & heteronyms
Distracted from an unedifying life
The tips of multiple personalities
Like coast-lines from a faraway ship
I saw you in the very dark one night
At the end of a winter lane, waiting
To greet your poets as they stumbled home
And one by one each tried to salute you
One of them grabbed your jacket, pulled
You in close, breathed a noxious identity
You, he says, You have landed me in trouble
My wife no longer believes that I am me
She raves at me as if I were Pessoa
I don’t really like you, she shrieks at me
And now I find that I'm looking again at ships
A silly ardor has tampered with my soul
My constituent parts need more air
You once lived your terrible life as if
Maleficent creatures all felt the same
Now I’ll be grateful if you gave her a call.

© 2010 Rob Schackne