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Thinking of Paris

25 Nov

It felt good to have my window open

the night sky and the cold rain

gave my apartment  a sense of time and place.

 

Trying to process my thoughts–

everything felt so jumbled together.

Softly wondering what 15 yr old me would think

if he knew that 20 years would barely change anything.

I still preferred watching sports to social interaction

and still jerking off more than what is considered healthy.

 

But 15 yr old me could have never imagined

the irregular path that he would travel 

to get to this point today.

And control, yes–I finally had control.

The biggest tragedy of my teenage years

was a lack of autonomy.

 

Paris couldn’t have been further away

than when I was living in Texas as a kid.

At least now it is a viable thought

less abstract,

but mostly a fantasy,

involving a beautiful woman

and literary groupies inside

cramped coffee shops

and bookstores.

 

But I’d read the headlines.

Saw the footage.

Even cried a little.

Friday the 13th brought in a gloom

that kept hanging.

Everyone so unnerved

because the illusion had finally been shattered.

 

The world has never been safe

for Muslims, for Jews, for Africans, For Arabs.

 

We have to treat each other better.

There is no way around it.

Which means I have to learn to treat others better too.

 

I still have not been to France.

But I will go someday–hopefully

on someone else’s dime.

and when I’m looking into the eyes

of my good company,

we can clink our wine glasses together

and I can tell her about this moment;

staring out of my apartment window on a rainy night,

thinking about the attacks

and how that event affected me.

 

~Edward Austin Robertson

 

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Your Dog Dies

22 Nov

it gets run over by a van.

you find it at the side of the road

and bury it.

you feel bad about it.

you feel bad personally,

but you feel bad for your daughter

because it was her pet,

and she loved it so.

she used to croon to it

and let her sleep in her bed.

you write a poem about it.

you call it a poem for your daughter,

about the dog getting run over by a van

and how you looked after it,

took it out into the woods

and buried it deep,deep,

and that poem turns out so good

and you’re almost glad the little dog

was run over, or else you’d never

have written that good poem.

then you sit down to write

a poem about writing a poem

about the death of that dog,

but while you’re writing you

hear a woman scream

your name, your first name,

both syllables,

and your heart stops.

after a minute, you continue writing.

she screams again.

you wonder how long this can go on.

 

~Raymond Carver

Armistice Day

11 Nov

I will come to a time in my backwards trip when November eleventh, accidentally my birthday, was a sacred day called Armistice Day. When I was a boy, and when Dwayne Hoover was a boy, all the people of all the nations which had fought in the First World War were silent during the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of Armistice Day, which was the eleventh day of the eleventh month.

It was during that minute in nineteen hundred and eighteen, that millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering one another. I have talked to old men who were on battlefields during that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the Voice of God. So we still have among us some men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind.

Armistice Day has become Veterans’ Day. Armistice Day was sacred. Veterans’ Day is not.

So I will throw Veterans’ Day over my shoulder. Armistice Day I will keep. I don’t want to throw away any sacred things.

What else is sacred? Oh, Romeo and Juliet, for instance.

And all music is.

~Kurt Vonnegut

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Poems for the Fall

27 Oct

Crow Hill Autumn

Cold Wind.

First snow of winter in October

Silent as crystals.

All that falls from above comes over

The north hill-

Bent and bruised poplars, beeches

The weeds, Queen Anne’s lace.

Apple trees.

Golden delicious sunlight glistens

Off their skins, delicate snow,

And I can only listen to the crisp crunch,

Biting into them the sound of snowfall.

The sunlight lingers on each flake

In a bed of reflection,

Like a winter lake sleeping.

Dormant is a long time

For each cotton stalk.

Songbirds are silent

On these days, reserved,

For a distant look

Into a life

Spilled on the road.

Limbo of Infants 

November is forever falling leaves

As long as I can remember

The scattered piles of the day’s labor

Undone by the icy wind

Whispering words of childhood names:

Rover, Polo, Oxen free.

Of all the seasons I prefer the autumn

Sending her children forth,

Each one a wish,

A lifetime.

These curled corpses of spring

End up on the embers of a distant fire.

~S.D. Hildebrand

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Creepshow (For Craig D.)

3 Aug
Took the wrong turn
or maybe the right turn
on my way to Rick’s
over on 9th and Maine.
While I surveyed the block,
a silhouette
in an upstairs window caught my eye.
“Was this? Oh why yes it was!”
 Indeed. A
slender figure disrobing–shimmying
out of some tight jeans with the lights on,
no blinds,
curtains open,
in front of a full length mirror.
What did I do to get so lucky?
Look at what the Gods laid on my plate
It would be disrespectful
not to at least take a second to watch the show.
For if God didn’t want me to look,
he wouldn’t have given her such a beautiful figure.
But a voice from out of the shadows
warned
“Look at yourself!
You are a black man
leaning against a tree on a dark night,
gaping at the window of a white woman in a red state.
Explain this so called good fortune to the Lawrence police.”
I begrudgingly relented.
I knew that voice was right.
Plus someone was waiting for me.
The second half of the Lakers game was certainly under way.
I looked around and made sure no figures were watching me from their windows–
dialing up the authorities out of neighborly concern.
I took one last look as she pranced around in her bra and underwear.
The show was over.
Life can be so unfair sometimes.
~Edward Austin Robertson

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Gone Forever

3 Aug
One day you will wake up and see that everyone
you once knew
has passed on,
or changed
or went away.
Someday ”this” will all be over.
It makes every high five more thrilling,
every kiss sweeter,
every hug tighter,
every smile more genuine,
every handshake firmer,
and every conversation more invested.
Cherish the good and embrace the bad,
for it is all moment to moment.
~Edward Austin Robertson

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Penumbral Eclipse

5 Mar

Her bloody eye, cratered and full,
winked at us, then shut itself for what seemed hours.
What appeared to be a miracle
would have caused disorder within our ancestors
so long ago.

We ritualized our own sacrifice,
knowing that lack of sleep
would rob us of our humor
to witness this special event.

Worth it to be grumpy
considering three hundred years can pass
before future lifeforms find themselves
awake at 5 in the morning,
openly wondering about their antecedents’ archaic rituals and customs.

~Edward Austin Robertson

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Bayou

28 Feb

A violent interruption of my sleep
where the cold air and the red soil turn into
the thickness of the bayou.

A cozy community of commuters
descend into weirdness together
Flickers of light onto our dark faces,
waking up to the smell of fried chicken
and the sun kissing my forehead.

We have arrived.

~Edward Austin Robertson

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Her Apartment on Stassney St.

3 Jan

Beyond the patio glass,
into the courtyard
where she walked her dog.
The dog that I’d grown to love–
the dog that had eaten a whole eighth of cannabis,
went catatonic then pissed down his own leg.

I stared out at them both
from inside her apartment,
watching her
Watching it
poop in the grass,
knowing that this would come to an end
much sooner than she wanted.

Knowing that I would miss her
miss him,
and miss this;
but also knowing it was best for everyone to move on.

I was not ready.
And to look back on things now,
I’m not sure I will ever be.

~Edward Austin Robertson~

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Eavesdropping

30 Nov

I listen to the trees.
The wind asks the questions
and the leaves respond with answers.
A conversation worth hearing.

~Edward Austin Robertson

2014-05-18 18.55.01

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