AUTONOMY

My heroes are sleeping
across the board.
I've tried to vex them
into a tantrum state
into reacting
but they rest ignoring
all requests for help
that I'm imploring,
demanding.
I am trying hard to bug them
how repugnant their obliviousness to me
when such effort I've expended
in vain
in hope
of finding myriad ways to change and cope.
My heroes are twisting away
- turning their backs
- blocking their ears
regretting nothing that their inaction causes.
I wait for a sign, retort, command
something to indicate they hear - they see
but nothing but inactivity has greeted me.
My heroes are a sham - a cheat
a trick to pull me in to waiting
for what I meet.

***************************************

BULL'S HIDE

If I could go back
I would not let them convince me
that I carried poisonous, horrible things
deep within me.
I'd steal all their money
and run like one chased
I'd find a bright corner
they couldn't erase.
I'd prosper and grow and I'd nurture the
storm that's seed brought me
and the storm the seed's origin
I wouldn't let daunt me.
But I am not a weed in the
ground with impenetrable skin
and when the storm raped me
a spore was set in
that's poisons had stingers of guilt.
But as much as I wish
I had other cards dealt me
a flower that's within
somewhere deep does defend me.

***************************************

CONUNDRUM

Something dark and magic leapt on me
something like a rabid hare
with claws to scrape my confidence raw
but I've felt similar things intrude, insist before.
Other bodies' faces have bent down
to bite or kiss unpleasantly
and I'm still here to tell, complain
connecting still with some degree of shame.
I've ripped another angry monster from its stage
I've spit out fur and teeth and rage
- and furiously gone on
still wondering if it made me weak
or strong.

***************************************

FATHER

Insulation from the rawness
of your stare.
Padding from the blows you couldn't see.
I set to harness within me
a chrysalis from
the backhanded slap
the thud
the shock - pull of the hair.
A perspective right side up, then
cockeyed down.
No harping words of warning.
No crescendo to a shrill.
You took as fast as blade talons
your unformed prey to kill.

***************************************

FAVOURITE

Mother
You've made an offering of me - my life
All hazards have claimed my way
And ashamed I've crouched down - embarrassed
But the winds have kept me upright
And the dog-tenacity I learned
Moves me towards a good light
Not the condemnation of this earth
That He adheres to
You've slapped the anger from your child's face
But it bids a renewal - and your going
So meet with Him my Mother
As He has taken you from God
He will take you into the weak soul of his heart
That has preyed on the death of young ones
Removing the smiles from their young faces

***************************************

FLUCTUATIONS IN A HOSPITAL BED

Who sighs in my ear -
whose lingo, both archaic
and comprehensible
can I not deaden or ignore
by sleep or pleasure

whose wrath and euphoria
indissoluble as the marks
on my wrists
makes me cringe at the ferocity
of nightmares
and return from hell
into God's eye as easily

and why from station to
station are the terminations
and onsets equally as abrupt
disallowing the conquest of
borders and the setting
of flags, which coincidentally (in my mind)
harbour red silhouettes
that by sun or darkness
exhibit unstable grins.

***************************************

THE FORTUNE HUNTER

Since there is absolution in poverty
I robbed the table of it's cloth.
Better yet
Pushing it aside with the chairs,
I sat on the floor
to dine on catfood and soda crackers.
So as not to offend the rudeness
of the moment
I killed the radiator heat with a stare
and huddled in the corner to feign comfort.
Before the cold could devour me
Some idiot lit a match to illuminate the guilt.

***************************************

THE GRASS SLEEPER

The grass is always greener
over there.
I've laid within its myriad colours
green and yellow, blue, turquoise.
Or black - when night grasses consumed me
within embracing blades.
If I could wish for just one thing
and have that one thing be
I'd wish for loving grass to close the world
and cover me.

***************************************

HEAL

Bring me a mad, manic man
I can calm
a wounded woman I can warm
a bitter child that's seen the good in life deform.
Give me the gift of your view
and I'll scrape off the dimming quality
that's obstructing what's true.
I'll blow off the dust
I'll tickle off rust
I'll kill whatever gets in the way
of a stark truth.
You know I can
again and again I show I can.
I loathed the lies my family told
for peace their souls they sold
no rancor in the house
emotions deemed unsightly
no noise, no hope of change
and no strong light to shine on wrongs
that older wrongs deranged.

***************************************

HOUSE

Bonemeal, spade, wheelbarrow, hoes
peat moss into the garden goes
green pears, sumac, snap-dragon breath
Wellingtons, satchel, snowman, cave
worm in a can, shoebox; under the
willow grave
prayer to the house I couldn't leave
forget the only death I couldn't grieve
but resurrected over and on
the dandelion grass, the rhubarb patch
the sunflower swatch, the shed, the tent, the only calm
the perfect hiding place, they took away
to bring me to a city house trap
with no fields to run in
no caves to cry in
no trees' consoling boughs to hold me
of the starkness of the change no one familiar told me.

***************************************

OBSERVING A NIGHTMARE

Screaming into the black caverns where you live,
I want you - won't you come out and play.
Don't know if heaven or hell sent you into my bed -
but I won't lie quiet there.
I won't do that for you.
Knowing you hate what beckons
is all I need - I howl,
cross at the demons that make you bleed.
Mad at the alien wind that searches
I wait to rip it from its astral perches.
Wet from the womb I've fallen
from my mother's disastrous belly,
I was never pink but
blood red.
The colour of the tears unshed,
the colour of the world's abhorrent stare
that greeted me when I came here
into a catastrophic time,
that waits to conquor it's own worldly rhyme
of decadence.
Who would meet this with pretence or naivet‚,
neither one of us would walk this way.
Lead the dancing
of the devil's last farewell entrancing.

***************************************

OLD SISTER

It's morning and the earth is wet
the worms swim-wriggle on the road as I walk.
I never knew what you were thinking
when I followed your back to school.
Wait for me - I can't get there as fast
but not a turn of the head - you wouldn't bother

sister aloof, sister of distance
angry, jealous, resentful.
I didn't know why then
stupid girl ahead of me
or I wouldn't have asked you to wait
you could have kept on going
walking past school and over the edge of the earth.

***************************************

THE TERMINAL VISITOR

Oh sweet sister when
my cries astounded you
from that lovely pale hospital
you came trudging back from Europe with
your dead wanderlust and surprise
to see me
happy as a pumpkin.
I could tell you'd travelled too
far with verity and
not nearly far enough from home.
Me in my hospital bed
reminding you
of those smiling Moslem women
all wrapped in white and
glad to be hidden.
I wanted to suggest my
desire for permanence (to be surrounded with
cool bathroom tile and whitecoats)
but thought better of it.
I could see your worried comparisons
commence
as you viewed the
supine gaze
the tenuous stare.
Surely you didn't think me unaware.

***************************************

THE SHINING

Purple is the night that finds me
the frantic air like luminous insects guides me
a billion stars glint slyly overhead
but nothing way up there can conjure dread
for I have made a pact together with the sky
to see beyond the incandescent moon's eye
the hidden clouds
the sullen air
the tragic and the wondrous
consequences way up there.

***************************************

NO TITLE
May 1976

"For just one hour"
The doctor dropped his hand from
rubbing his absent beard (territorial affectation)
and grinned wily.
"We'd like to help you" he gleamed and
shoved me in this big school house box.
Before closing the lid he rearranged his
halo and winked at my companions who then
invisible to me
squat in the corners.
When the doctor returned (not promptly, I may add). Surprised
he was to see me smiling up from the
one's he'd gathered so selectly. The "choicest
deviants" he called them.
"I thought the narrow eyes, the
murderous, vacant gaze
would cause in you a change of ways."
He eye'd the curious procession.
"No" I beamed
the flower faced school children I
once had known
had by far the nastier expression.

***************************************

UNTITLED
(no date)

I shot a stare through my
sister
As cold as a five dollar whore
As mean as a dog with crushed toes
hobbling to the roadside.
As undiluted as the mad moon demanding
space and awe.
I stared at my sister with
eyes befitting gargoyles
but she only started singing
throwing her long, deep smile to
the wind.

***************************************

Poems by Robin Jones