POEM: "Muscle Work"

Muscle Work


Stabilizers designed to catch
the unexpected shift of your world
and all else unpredicted

we balance on this bench
argue with gravity wrest it up
wrestling it down

we wait underneath 
the heavy wheels on an axle
this truck going nowhere

a million no-miles the Darkness
down the Trace past the Sun
the deep blue at times of you

crunching tires in the backyard
breaksweat indoors under the roof
of workshop factory floor

some say the bench is illusion
we won’t lift higher than we know
we might be delusional

but having done it once
or twice I know these muscles
power is strength divided by time.


© 2013 Rob Schackne

A Mari L'Esperance Poem

Prayer

Bring it up from the dark, bring it all up,

the spiny fish with their needle teeth
and wands of phosphorescent light,
all that is waterlogged, heavy with its own
unbearable weight, all that is strange,
malformed, lying in shadow—that
crawls and humps and drags itself
along the muddy bottom, making
guttural sounds no human can imagine.
Haul it up into the light as the rusted
pulleys and frayed ropes creak and groan
with their burden—crates of skulls, broken
cars and bodies, sacks of stones, their
horrible tonnage, the lost and discarded, all
that we would rather forget: our angers
and fears, the lives we betrayed, the souls
we abandoned while we looked after
our own comfort and gain. Let’s see them all,
here in the open, unbound and pulsing
with that which was never extinguished,
which survives even death itself, brave
flicker at the black gate of our oblivion.

(2013)

POEM: "Seagulls"

Seagulls 

Thank you seagulls 
cawing for rotting fish
won't speak ill of you again
on the edge of the toilet bowl
throat stretched wide


© 2013 Rob Schackne

An Evie Shockley Poem

the obsolete army


the obsolete army works with bayonets and horses
             the bayonets they dismantle for parts
             the horses they groom and set free in the newly opened pastures

the obsolete army has time on their wrists
             they take active duty in 8-hour shifts
             their watches are timepieces--they aren't expecting anyone

the obsolete army exercises every day
             they push-up the people who are closest to their dreams
             they pull-up those just getting off the ground

the obsolete army debates the value of war museums
             they know an unlocked world is the key to freedom 
             they know how close memorial is to mourning

the obsolete army is increasingly multi-lingual
             comment dit-on en francais: arabic is spoken here
             when they say tanks, they're practicing their patois

the obsolete army understands nostalgia
              they welcome the obsolete patriots carrying protest signs
              they provide tea, coffee, and athletic competitions

the obsolete army is open 24/7
             the privates promote the general welfare, even non-publicly
             you enter it yourself when you're most at peace

the obsolete army repurposes the obsolete words
             they donate collateral damage to the financial industry
             they apply infantry to the maternity wards' ever-renewing ranks


(2013)

POEM: "Still Reason With Person"

Still Reason With Person


Covered in the sea
loud suck of sand

sing some answer
the wild grasslands

reversing damage
the wind won't argue

boo-boo you say boo-boo
how sharp the knife is

boxed in by memory
the distance agrees

rational boundaries
take you out for a walk

desire replaces reason
grasses waving insects.


© 2013 Rob Schackne