Wednesday, June 28, 2017



DRESS CODE
‘I’ve got to wear this’ she said
slipping back into the dress of
the previous night; ‘I wasn’t
expecting any of this’ she said
as she buttoned and zipped,
‘I mean, I had planned to go
home last night’
I propped myself up in the
bed; ‘This could be your
home’ I said,
she looked around the small
untidy cluttered room that
was my world:
‘I’d cramp your style’ she
said smiling:
‘You may be right’ I said,
rising naked from the bed
and stepping over a few
bodies sleeping on the floor:
‘Take care’ I said, kissing her
cheek:
she draped her arms across my
shoulders and kissed me hard,
‘Who the fuck are these people?’
she asked,
‘I don’t know’ I said, ‘See you
later’
‘If you’re lucky’ she said
closing the door behind her.

ARTHUR & DONALD
I have a young Rimbaud
in my head tonight and
he’s running around with a
revolver in his hand and
he’s looking desperate and
dangerous and he scares
me but in an exciting way
and he seeks out the fool
Donald Trump who is
holding a hand-gun in
each hand and he looks
dumb and deranged and
he really fucking scares
me in a terrifying way
along with the rest of the
globe:
Arthur moves in,
Donald starts shooting
wildly and manically,
Rimbaud takes aim and
pulls the trigger
in an almighty
illumination
and I find myself alone in
a drunken boat drifting to
nowhere once again.

PLEASE, GIVE ME THE LAST LINE FIRST
‘We are looking for
exciting, daring and
uncompromising
works of poetry,
words that sting,
dark and humorous,
words that loiter
like a street-thief
in the reader’s head
long after reading
and what we’re also
looking for is a
$5.00 reading fee.


A KITCHEN TABLE MEMORY
On at least a couple of
occasions he was sober
for several months at a
time and he worked
regular manual factory
jobs and it was so
strange coming home
from school and seeing
him coming home
straight and tired and
sitting at the kitchen
table with us for the
evening meal and I’d
look at him and feel so
pleased he was there
and he’d look at me and
nod his head with a
quiet smile: he never
once asked how I was
or what I was doing,
he knew nothing about
me but that didn’t
matter because he was
my father and I loved
him as much as I could
whenever he was
 around but I never
told him this, we’d sit
and eat in silence,
like two
awkward strangers.

LET’S THINK AGAIN
It was always
going to be
heroin
that was going
to kill him:
for 3 decades
it was always
going to be a
heroin
overdose death,
no surprise,
but not cancer,
no one thought
of that,
not cancer,
that changes
everything,
now people
have a
sympathy
for him.

GRANDCHILDREN
Both of them together
weighed less than 6lb
at birth: 3 months
premature:
man, they were fucking
tiny, so delicate, fragile,
closer to death than life
and my daughter weak
by the loss of blood:
for 3 months the twins
were in special-care
-units, you couldn’t
really see them through
the maze of wires and
tubes and bleeping
machines, but we
visited everyday and
spoke to them and
brought gifts:
every 2 or 3 days my
daughter could hold
her babies and the
feelings were beyond
description and we all
cried in joy:
something inside me knew
they’d all make it, I
couldn’t think of it any
other way:
my daughter is a tough
woman and her babies
just as tough:
they are 4 years old now
yet it seems like
yesterday we’d finish
work and drive the 30
miles to the hospital
to visit our
grandchildren fighting
for every moment.

John D Robinson





















Helpless I do not know if good intentions prevail among the elected, among the appointed, leaving me apprehensive that the fate ...