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

A Simon Armitage Poem

At Sea


It is not through weeping,
but all evening the pale blue eye
on your most photogenic side has kept
its own unfathomable tide. Like the boy
at the dyke I have been there:

held out a huge finger,
lifted atoms of dust with the point
of a tissue and imagined slivers of hair
in the oil on the cornea. We are both
in the dark, but I go on

drawing the eyelid up by its lashes
folding it almost inside-out, then finding
and hiding every mirror in the house
as the iris, besieged with the ink
of blood rolls back

into its own orbit. Nothing
will help it. Through until dawn
you dream the true story of the boy
who hooked out his eye and ate it,
so by six in the morning

I am steadying the ointment
that will bite like an onion, piping
a line of cream while avoiding the pupil
and in no time it is glued shut
like a bad mussel.

Friends call round
and mean well. They wait
and whisper in the air-lock of the lobby
with patches, eyewash, the truth
about mascara.

Even the cats are on to it;
they bring in starlings, and because their feathers
are the colours of oil on water in sunlight
they are a sign of something.
In the long hours

beyond us, irritations heal
into arguments. For the eighteenth time
it comes to this: the length of your leg sliding out
from the covers, the ball of your foot
like a fist on the carpet

while downstairs
I cannot bring myself to hear it.
Words have been spoken; things that were bottled
have burst open and to walk in now
would be to walk in

on the ocean.

(2005)

POEM: "Untied"

Untied


Buy makeup teach her how
lend weight to lose weight
educate educate god he hates it
might as well eradicate now
she's so beautiful like she is
canst thou remember a time
before we came unto this cell?
sure girls ride mountain mules
sure they ride trails steep as caterpillars
slowly slowly up around they go
mushroom clouds are pretty chilly
she's taking the lift up to his place
later she cooks him a strange dinner.


© 2013 Rob Schackne

A Gjertrud Schnackenberg Poem

Signs


Threading the palm, a web of tiny lines
Spells out the lost money, the heart, the head,
The wagging tongues, the sudden deaths, in signs
We would smooth out like imprints on a bed,

In signs that can't be helped, geese heading south,
In signs read anxiously, like breath that clouds
A mirror held to a barely breathing mouth, 
Like telegrams, the gathering of crowds--

The plane, an X in the sky spelling disaster:
Before the whistle and hit, a tracer flare;
Before rubble, a hairline crack in plaster
And a housefly's panicked scribbling on the air.


(1974)

POEM: "Germany 3 - Argentina 1"

Germany 3 - Argentina 1

                                              (2006 World Cup)

This week the Germans lifted steins
As they drank to a kind of imagination
That owes a little more to cupidity
Than to the demands of extra time

I guess that tonight by a campfire
On the high plains of Argentina
Gauchos will argue the off-side rule
And if there’s such a thing as free

The wireless crackles, the boys debate
Whether a penalty may not result in death
And several sharp knives are unsheathed
In demonstration of traditional scorn

At last Andreas curves an old ball high into the dark
(Their long beef ribs were burnt mostly black)
Now the herd is slowly moving it around
And occasionally a perfect goal is scored.

                                                        
© 2006 Rob Schackne

POEM: "After Reading Gerry's Poem"

After Reading Gerry’s Poem


Opens out of sleep
surfaces in remnant memory
dread whatever you conceived
maybe departure maybe death
maybe deadly fear of an insane world
you call out you search for it
only to find the darkness is empty
surprised as you say that nothing stares back
for how else does revolution occur
looking for new fears to conquer
the challenge of changes we asked for
if poets inspire dreams of freedom
they’re the first motherfuckers against the wall.


© 2013 Rob Schackne

POEM: "Kodachrome (1974-2009)"

Kodachrome (1974-2009)

                                Er hat den Knaben wohl in dem Arm,


                                Er faßt ihn sicher, er hält ihn warm.

                                Goethe (1782)

Now that Kodachrome is dead

Will such fine exceptionalism

Be called into the station because

No one can find the film they need

Is it stored someplace did you sell it?

The police are interrogating you

(The sweat dripping from them)

Getting hit a few times in the head

Confess there was once a project

Conceived late at night in a shack

A green man lots of empty poems

Who didn’t know atoms from Adam

Whose one simple moment wanted you

To take that picture then you waited

Waited forty years for it to fade.

© 2012 Rob Schackne

A Vasko Popa Poem

Little Box


The little box gets her first teeth
And her little length
Little width little emptiness
And all the rest she has

The little box continues growing
The cupboard that she was inside
Is now inside her

And she grows bigger bigger bigger
Now the room is inside her
And the house and the city and the earth
And the world she was in before

The little box remembers her childhood
And by a great longing
She becomes a little box again

Now in the little box
You have the whole world in miniature
You can easily put in a pocket
Easily steal it lose it

Take care of the little box


(1987) Tr. Charles Simic

POEM: "So She Like Gets This Letter From Her Dad Like 6 Months After Her Birthday"

So She Like Gets This Letter From Her Dad Like 6 Months After Her Birthday

                           


My dearest Julie, 

Did you ever get that drawing I sent you? Pretty good, wasn't it? 

A thousand light-years from here I climbed to the rim of Yasur volcano 

on Tanna in Vanuatu and I peered down into its awful fire. I looked down 

at my feet there was a red Coke can. I saw a postcard someone had dropped. 

I picked it up. A terrific photo of some very severe ice-covered mountains. 

On the other side was written But what you don't like where you are

you won't like here even more. Only this. I wish it had been sent to me. 

Today they showed us the film A Scanner Darkly. Check it out. 

It's about addiction and prevarication. Everybody's itch has everybody 

doing it. Tell your mother it's just about photography. There in one scene

our addled heroes car has broken down on this shitty California highway. 

They lift the hood. They are peering at the hot engine busy studying it doing 

their best to clamor and convict a mechanical part of intentional malice. 

Finally exhausting all paranoid leads one shouts Don't blame the drugs! 

Which was the moment all of us had been waiting for. So we cheered. 

Afterwards we discussed the million drugs. For what? The old beaters 

we drove? The hunger for explanations beyond the conventional wisdom? 

Hope the 12th grade is OK & you're making friends with good people. 

Happy birthday. 

Love, 

Dad

© 2011 Rob Schackne

A Ronnie Yates Poem

New Smyrna, Florida


She waits in the jungle beside a dirt road

Dead ends into Turnbull Bay, pelicans,
Skeets, close heat, no-see-ums, armadillos
Scratching in the dead leaves beneath the poison-tip
Blades of the killer fans of the yucca gloriosa. Headlights
Ply the dust. Pulling himself out, blinking hard, no reason,
Presents himself to his fare, he’s a 50 something hillbilly skinny,
Damp hair, chews on the remains of a menthol smoker’s
Cough; a juiceless ghoul in a Members Only Jacket,
Gray socks, a blood sugar tester, driving a ‘90 88
In a 2 car fleet run out of a Locksmith’s shack.
She laughs, a little nervous, pictures centaurs assaulted
By ten million stars, dreams of Voltaire’s secular
Angels, a magical technology and fetal abductions. He starts
To wheeze, a vacuum of awkward pity opens up
And she goes weak in the knees. What happens next,
She tells it better. “I’ll do it if you want.” He couldn’t
Hear, she opened her mouth, he gave up only a little prod.
It was like an apology for how beautiful she was.

(2013)

POEM: "Spleen I"

Spleen I 


Bless my heart and cross the street
through the gates of Puji Monastery
past the souvenir vendors and the seers
rent-a-cops beggars plastic Buddhas
thinking a complex faith is best left alone
it was my only meditation on the day but
that night I dreamt Guanyin was running too
breasted the surf in a fiery flower cap a champion
powering a hundred wondrous strokes and stopped
and bobbing in the waves turned and started
working her way slowly back to shore.


© 2013 Rob Schackne

POEM: "Spleen II"

Spleen II 


O spring streets comes the artist 
a pail of water and a large brush 
to draw his frustrated characters 
they dry the moment you read them 
dusk but hard to tell dark particulates 
closing hard with the invisible ink 
this is not the life you ordered 
these are not the epicurean streets
what has gone before is turned to rice
polaroid photos working in reverse
you reach a pale door without a poem 
in a city that is not long-shouldered 
that pushes points between our bodies 

shoves and turns shoulders to make way. 


© 2013 Rob Schackne 

POEM: "Spleen III"

Spleen III

The faces of Chinese women in anguish

           forced detentions

                 the razing of homes

the vanity of old men with dyed hair

the tether of foolishness

           already in opposition

                 at times the only way out 

sits quietly upon the stair

shoo away the temple rats
          (maybe pray away the time)
                 Guanyin please help us
fold these dumplings with extra care

some faces from the years I've lived there:

[CENSORED]

© 2013 Rob Schackne

A Chris Wallace-Crabbe Poem

Rendition


Not, please, this creeping elaborate pain
and not slow parody of how lives end,
nor policemen in mufti playing a dirty god,
not the stinking underside of Elsewhere,
regimes of colonels or generals or psychopaths,
not fascination with seeing just how far a body can be made to go
nor the treatment of survival as precisely equal to dying.

Please, not a battering on the door at three in the morning;
not, I'm afraid, you're going to have to come with me.
Not the large plain dull old car
waiting outside your door with motor grumbling
for the quick take-off,
nor the bareness of a shabby room with overbright lighting.
Not Them, moving in.

Certainly not having to take off your clothes;
water, the truncheon, the cold, the blaring, the slaps
and long standing still in one damned place,
not the prodded humiliation of your nudity,
clothed ones treating you as a slab of meat,
not the drawn-out thickness of questioning
and not the detumescence of hope.

Not the naked genitals like frightened mice,
not something hard inserted in the vagina,
not pints of liquid trickled down your throat,
not a bully's foul breath up against your face
as concentration goes,
not the pummelled phonebook against your guts
leaving no distinct bruises.

Not the electrodes.
Fuck, no, not the electrodes
and not your buttocks beaten, then beaten again,
not something pushed right up under your fingernails
nor a bloody gobbet hacked off your left ear –
which you are then going to be forced to eat.
Not weeks without food.

Bodies have been designed frail, by and large, by and small,
ready to be tormented and taken apart.
The shit may run down your cold legs.
You may die.
You will suffer and die.
You will survive, language holding some trace of you for years,
And the mourners, too.


(2013)

POEM: "Climbing Rock: A Meditation"

Climbing Rock: A Meditation

                                      .for the freaky mountain kids

Look along any line keep the light

any grip of angle know the hope

we are distracted

divine winds hum stand off don’t hug

first rule of salvation never hang from a rope

the subtle atomicities of evil

hold my cold flexed hand

maintain the grip on a winter day

where fear is not 

the summit is finally reached
days & nights they pass away 

the happy ending

evidence prominent 
witnesses numerous

the falcon circling us 

one will never say

I cannot do that 

old friend miraculous.

© 2013 Rob Schackne

POEM: "The Turn"

The Turn


You've been brave that way
no stopping in the tunnel
so Li'l Buck just danced today
won't you dance he was asking

but there's no need to answer that
sometimes bravery's just a sudden thing
now consider if you’re dancing high
in gunfire shelling or screams
when did you turn into wolf
smell of gun oil in your bed
the big swans dying from love?


© 2013 Rob Schackne