A Matthew Rohrer Poem

Garden of Bees 

The narcissus grows past
the towers. Eight gypsy
sisters spread their wings
in the garden. Their gold teeth
are unnerving. Every single
baby is asleep. They want
a little money and I give
them less. I'm charming and
handsome. They take my pen.
I buy the poem from the garden
of bees for one euro. A touch
on the arm. A mystery word.
The sky has two faces.
For reasons unaccountable
my hand trembles.
In Roman times if they were
horrified of bees they kept it secret.

(2011)

POEM: "A Black Hair"

A Black Hair

Lessening rain

forget it was stuck

on the window

if it’s breathing

keep it close

to the glass

burn a candle

swear don’t look

one eye closes a poem

one eye opens a poem

know things always

attach then let go.

© 2011 Rob Schackne

A Gabrielle Calvocoressi Poem

 A Word From The Fat Lady


It isn't how we look up close
so much as in dreams.

Our giant is not so tall,
our lizard boy merely flaunts

crusty skin - not his fault
they keep him in a crate

and bathe him maybe once a week.
When folks scream or clutch their hair

and poke at us and glare and speak
of how we slithered up from Hell,

it is themselves they see:
the preacher with the farmer's girls

(his bulging eyes, their chicken legs)
or the mother lurching towards the sink,

a baby quivering in her gnarled
hands. Horror is the company

you keep when shades are drawn.
Evil does not reside in cages.


(2005)

POEM: "Philippe Petit, Twin Towers, NYC, 1974"

Philippe Petit, Twin Towers, NYC, 1974

                                         
                                              (Imaginary fragment: Sept. 11)


damn these towers high off the deck
check the anchorage over and over
winds howl the quick pure moment
only the act of one God could let this go
I recite my prayers and banish hubris
the last time high in the air a small bird
flew on to my wire I stilled it waited there
while I thought no-thing no-thing nothing
till it vanished with a slight vibration


© 2008 Rob Schackne

POEM: "Shark Attack/Lines On A Beach"

Shark Attack/Lines On A Beach


I.

Are the frangipanis forever sweet?
And does the wind still whisper
Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
Possums clinging to their trees?
Stars come out from their shells
Like bugs crawling across the sand?


II.

Yesterday off Bunker Bay in WA
A brave young surfer was taken by a shark
Swimming today with bad indigestion
Of nylon steamer, bathers and a bracelet
With an ankh, a Hello Kitty & blood-type tag
(An emergency alert for tigers and this poem).


III.

There's a serious case for other murders
(Hear the call for drum-lines off the beaches
To mutilate & deter our brothers-at-sea)
A spot of fun, a feed, a surf, more death?
Rest easy as you can, fortunate friend
To be one at last with what you loved.



© 2011 Rob Schackne

A C.P. Cavafy Poem

Caesarion

In part to verify a date,

and in part just to pass the time,

last night I picked up a volume

of Ptolemaic inscriptions and began reading.

Those endless poems of praise and flattery

all sound the same. All the men are brilliant,

great and good, mighty benefactors;

most wise in all their undertakings.

The same for the women of the dynasty, all the Berenices

and Cleopatras, wonderful, each and every one.

When I managed to find the date in question,

I'd have put the book aside had a brief mention

of King Caesarion, an insignificant note really,

not suddenly caught my eye...

Ah, there you stood, with that vague

charm of yours. And since history has devoted

just a few lines to you, I had more freedom

to fashion you in my mind's eye...

I made you handsome, capable of deep feeling.

My art gave your face an appealing,

dreamlike beauty. In fact, I imagined you

so vividly last night, that when my lamp

went out—I let it go out on purpose—

I actually thought you had come into my room;

you were there, standing before me,

just as you would have looked in defeated Alexandria,

pale and tired, ideal in your sorrow,

still hoping for mercy from those vicious men

who kept on whispering 'too many Caesars.'

(1918) Tr. Avi Sharon

POEM: "A Dream In September"

A Dream In September


This morning I woke up, blood on
The pillow, don't know whose it was
Then we both started to explain
She was our only knowledge
We were young, we tossed our curls
Flirting with the dangerous big waves
Thirty years later now we remember
All that has happened. Yes. It does.

That time I came home afterwards
You were shuddering like the wind
But I know what you saw, the Moon
Hooked bad on the horns of the bull
That had been racing through the sky
The better part of a week. I ask you
Tossing curls, did it come your way?
You grimace again. Yes. It did.


© 2011 Rob Schackne

POEM: "In Strong Winds"

In Strong Winds


The earthworms know the future
the birds fly away for the bombing
only much later do you pick up the pieces
holding your breath for the thousand leaves
your water in bottles in an unlighted room
you bite your own hand like a hamburger
a hurricane has come taking angry stock
flaying rivers and trees, sending roof slates
miles off in search of a field without a house
but you're going to miss the Apocalypse
now you have to eat the left-overs fast
before the moon sets and dark animals come
it's only August, the lucky month of leaders
you've just lost your job, you have $20.


© 2011 Rob Schackne

POEM: "Today The Lesson Is Fresh Air"

Today The Lesson Is Fresh Air


A 60-year-old man, and she is 23
And naturally she is very beautiful

Walking on the bridge he breathes
The air suspended between 2 peaks

She waits for each word, she presses
His hand to her ear. He doesn't say it.

Sunset seagulls play shivaree below,
One has what looks like a banana peel

Zen lessons years ago he remembers
Detachment from all that causes pain

Though desire can make a lousy poem
He will not carry her from his mind.

© 2011 Rob Schackne

POEM: "Why Maps Matter"

Why Maps Matter

The bugs are plaguing you

The ruts are getting deeper

You are unfolding the map

There’s a dead beast up ahead

Her giggling continues, you reach in

A brown bag for a sip of Jack D

The machine almost out of control

Not exactly because of you, but well

Damn, levity is beyond your powers

She slaps foul goo all over you

The tube says Use By 2006

And the map is nearly useless

A million insects suddenly go nuts

Their number’s been dialled at last

You swat at them hard with the map

When you get back on the sacred road

You miss your turn-off, damn it all

How far do brutal tracks go?

© 2011 Rob Schackne

POEM: "The Art Of China"

The Art Of China


WW in prison
as a punishment
the guards make him
wash his own clothes

(Never pleasure for them both)

Pavement night
there was no moon
summer impenetrable
a beggar lay beating
long summer odds
feigning sleep

To walk on, to hum
to admire the skulls

(What's that in Chinese?)

Around the clock
& inches away
they're shouting
they want you to wake up

Get back on board!

Released.

Then write again.

© 2011 Rob Schackne

A William Matthews Poem

 Office Life

Drab bickering, the empire dead and tax

reports alive, paperwork, erasure,

the grime on the philodendron leaves

since who tends everybody’s plant?

It’s the triumph of habit over appetite,

like comparing the stars to diamonds.

We make copies. We send out for food. Food

arrives. We have spats and tizzies and huffs.

Isn’t it great being grown up, having

a job? We get our work done more or less

and go home. How was it today? we’re asked

and don’t know what to say. It’s like wet soot,

like us, like what we feel: stuck on itself,

as, from here, starlight seems stuck to its star.

(from New Hope For The Dead: Uncollected Matthews, 2010)

A Jorge Luis Borges Poem

  Limits


Of all the streets that blur in to the sunset,
There must be one (which, I am not sure)
That I by now have walked for the last time
Without guessing it, the pawn of that Someone

Who fixes in advance omnipotent laws,
Sets up a secret and unwavering scale
for all the shadows, dreams, and forms
Woven into the texture of this life.

If there is a limit to all things and a measure
And a last time and nothing more and forgetfulness,
Who will tell us to whom in this house
We without knowing it have said farewell?

Through the dawning window night withdraws
And among the stacked books which throw
Irregular shadows on the dim table,
There must be one which I will never read.

There is in the South more than one worn gate,
With its cement urns and planted cactus,
Which is already forbidden to my entry,
Inaccessible, as in a lithograph.

There is a door you have closed forever
And some mirror is expecting you in vain;
To you the crossroads seem wide open,
Yet watching you, four-faced, is a Janus.

There is among all your memories one
Which has now been lost beyond recall.
You will not be seen going down to that fountain
Neither by white sun nor by yellow moon.

You will never recapture what the Persian
Said in his language woven with birds and roses,
When, in the sunset, before the light disperses,
You wish to give words to unforgettable things.

And the steadily flowing Rhone and the lake,
All that vast yesterday over which today I bend?
They will be as lost as Carthage,
Scourged by the Romans with fire and salt.

At dawn I seem to hear the turbulent
Murmur of crowds milling and fading away;
They are all I have been loved by, forgotten by;
Space, time, and Borges now are leaving me.


(Tr. Alastair Reid)

POEM: "Y Por La Mañana Miraba"

Y Por La Mañana Miraba

                                   Yo soy yo y mi circunstancia
                                   José Ortega y Gasset

You think you know
the histories of a person's hand
what touched it, what it did

these hearts are leather gloves
whether pounding a kitchen table
or shooting something inattentive

of course there's a gentle side
the hands of the farmer husband
who makes paper birds for children

now the hot summer months

need trucks to carry water

and the beasts are sullen

I am I and my circumstances, he says
pick up the bullet and show me
you say it to any human heart.

© 2011 Rob Schackne

A Rosemary Nissen-Wade Poem

Quietly Surprising

(Found poem: Cryptic crossword clues)


One enters
very quietly
the final conduit
quiet knock
Len returning
with bits of broken shell
nice to come back
into quiet, first-rate court area
the French shelter
outside the open atrium
with a kind of concealed energy
the boy it brings back
makes hand signals in water surges
surprising boy dancer
a pro, he is faultless.

(2011)

A Michael Blumenthal Poem

 The Nurse
                                                        after Tennyson

Now come the purple garments, now the white;

Now move the vagrant beds among the disinfected halls;
Now stretch the opaque hose between the antiseptic rooms:
I waken: and she looks at me.

Now droops the freshly propped-up pillow like a ghost,
And like a ghost she sets it right for me.

Now lie the intravenous tubules by the door,
And all the body's ills stare openly at me.

Now drifts the slim physician on, and leaves
His clipboard hanging like a thought in front of me.

Now folds the young nurse all her aprons up,
And slips her lovely bosom in a waiting car:
And so desire folds itself as well, and slips
Into my arms, and then is lost in me.

(2011)

A Jennifer Chang Poem

 Again A Solstice 

It is not good to think
of everything as a mistake. I asked 
for bacon in my sandwich, and then 

I asked for more. Mistake.
I told you the truth about my scar: 

I did not use a knife. I lied 
about what he did to my faith 
in loneliness. Both mistakes.

That there is always a you. Mistake. 
Faith in loneliness, my mother proclaimed,

is faith in self. My instinct, a poor polaris.
Not a mistake is the blue boredom 
of a summer lake. O mud, sun, and algae!

We swim in glittering murk. 
I tread, you tread. There are children

testing the deep end, shriek and stroke, 
the lifeguard perilously close to diving. 
I tried diving once. I dove like a brick. 

It was a mistake to ask the $30 prophet
for a $20 prophecy. A mistake to believe.

I was young and broke. I swam
in a stolen reservoir then, not even a lake. 
Her prophesy: from my vagrant exertion 

I'll die at 42. Our dog totters across the lake, 
kicks the ripple. I tread, you tread.

What does it even mean to write a poem? 
It means today 
I'm correcting my mistakes.

It means I don't want to be lonely.

(2011)

POEM: "Bill Evans, Village Vanguard 1961"

Bill Evans, Village Vanguard 1961

                                                        for Stu Rawlinson

1.

Bill plays My Foolish Heart

What a bass line and what a piano

A smart melody beyond economics

(The cocktail glasses we can hear them)

What value could we ever add to it?                               

2.

You wrote that she’s spread by atoms

In a club where strong drink is dealt

(Way too expensive) everybody hears

The manager when he falls over, what

If the atoms still demolish the carpet?

3.

If what we do is love sweetheart come

Tell me there will be poems 10 years from now

Put your black hand back on my piano

Your word you will learn these words

And we will love until we both forget.

© 2011 Rob Schackne

POEM: "Angels Redux"

Angels Redux


I believe that angels always
watch for the falling spirits

bodies that are canted oddly
the eyes that give it all away

the obdurate memories
of late and tender kisses

an agreement of tongues
& just one strong word

but the day it was done
we went out shopping

after that we shot some pool
& later made love for hours

so patiently do they try
not to be fastidious.


© 2011 Rob Schackne

An Ian Hamilton Finlay Poem

Orkney Interior


Doing what the moon says, he shifts his chair
Closer to the stove and stokes it up
With the very best fuel, a mixture of dried fish
And tobacco he keeps in a bucket with crabs

Too small to eat. One raises its pincer
As if to seize hold of the crescent moon
On the calendar which is almost like a zodiac
With inexplicable and pallid blanks. Meanwhile

A lobster is crawling towards the clever
Bait that is set inside the clock
On the shelf by the wireless—an inherited dried fish
Soaked in whisky and carefully trimmed

With potato flowers from the Golden Wonders
The old man grows inside his ears.
Click! goes the clock-lid, and the unfortunate lobster
Finds itself a prisoner inside the clock,

An adapted cuckoo-clock. It shows no hours, only
Tides and moons and is fitted out
With two little saucers, one of salt and one of water
For the lobster to live on while, each quarter-tide,

It must stick its head through the tiny trapdoor
Meant for the cuckoo. It will be trained to read
The broken barometer and wave its whiskers
To Scottish Dance Music, till it grows too old.

Then the old man will have to catch himself another lobster.
Meanwhile he is happy and takes the clock
Down to the sea. He stands and oils it
In a little rock pool that reflects the moon.


from Selections (2011)