Second Star to the Right and Straight On 'Til Morning
—Poems and Photos by Robert Lee Haycock, Antioch
HOLD YOUR NOSE
Can you hear me
Hollowed men in tailored suits
Swear your oaths
Into mirrored chests
While we drive nails
Are you there
Sword in the stone
Stone in the sling
There will be fire and brimstone
For medicinal purposes only
I might lose you
Brain Leak
OF ROCKS AND TREES
If you will allow me to diagnose our delirium
I find we have a fundamental drive to daughter
As does the redwood tree rooted
Unable to evacuate the cleansing fire
But dying wide open to a new generation
Like a lapidarist circling around a geode
Wondering what worlds wait within
I will forgive you for being so watchful
If you will forgive me for being so forward
Everything is Broken
ONCE UPON A NEVERMORE
That torrid scene is stitched together now
On the frayed fabric of my faulty memory
An applique
A pastiche
A picaresque
Should I dwell on its misty details too long
I might substitute one lover for another
An aroma
A face
A frame
I whispered lust upon her pursed lips and her
Objections blew away like dandelion seeds
Here, There and Everywhere
SO THERE, SO VERY THERE
There must have been a thrill to be had
In there somewhere I'm sure of it but these
Days my memory is so fractured and that's
Putting it very kindly that I have difficulty
Separating time past from wishful thinking and
While I may not have my erstwhile energy for
Erudite argumentation I refuse to be patronized
I've shaved too many times now with Occam's razor
To give a hoot about a little blood
Through a Glass Darkly
WHATEVER BECAME OF CLEMENTINE?
Back into the mine from the edge of the tip
I can hear the knockers in the walls getting
Louder the deeper I go
An immense clanging and rattle
Once I was too proud to be afraid
Assiduously mothered the catalog of my fears
But I am too old now not to feel frightened
Too young to be ready to die
While You Wait
BOY HOWDY
I'm game but in no position to decide
Since I found your book in the remainders bin
We knew how to spoon back then boy howdy
But the ride's gotten too bumpy now
Nothing to do but bang our teeth together
And collapse into each other's memory
__________________________
Today's LittleNip:
NOAH'S DREAM
Sun cannot pierce
The dark authority of these vines
Languid below them lie I
And I would lie should I aver
Their fruit is nothing but
Courageous beneath the flaming
Of this summerness
___________________________
—Medusa, reminding you that Robert Lee Haycock will be reading with D.R. Wagner and Tim Harper, with music from Pat Grizzell's band, Proxy Moon, at Moon Cafe Gallery on Main St. in Locke this Saturday, 6pm, at Going to the Moon, the release party for D.R.'s new book, The Night Market. Be there!
To enlarge Robert's photos, click once on them.
And happy birthday to frank andrick, editor of Rattlesnake Press's WTF!, a new issue of which will be released one week from tonight at Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe, 1414 16th St., Sac., 8pm. Save the date!
Downriver