It’s happened
yet again.
Another educator arrested.
This time,
a high school teacher getting it on
with her 16-year-old student.
Many of the liaisons
took place in her car—
In her defense,
she was a biology teacher.
Book learning is great
but there’s just no substitute
for real world experience.
searching for nirvana
between the thighs
of a lovely woman
in rome
i want to believe in
love, the future, a
destiny deserving
of all this pain
but i’ve choked on
my disillusionment
since i was a child
one night it’s
the bottle
the next night it’s
a butcher’s knife
thrown across
the room
there isn’t any love
in the room if someone
isn’t screaming at
the top of their lungs
i’m still searching
for nirvana
soft skin on a
sunny beach
worries swept away
with the tide
not all sins can be
washed with blood
or simply brushed
under the last dirty
rug in the house
There are some consolations in a plague year.
You’ve a polite excuse,
to duck unwelcome social invitations
to skip the banal drudgery
of self-opinionated company
of overbearing liberals
and pontificating radicals.
You’ve good reason to dodge
the intellectually occluded
and the patently deluded,
the would-be salon-keepers
and the throne-lickers and creepers,
the dipsomaniac ravers
and the posturing face-savers,
obsessive Trump-haters
and embittered second-raters,
the unregenerate hipsters,
and fatcat investors
narcissistic exhibitionists,
the wannabees and ego trips,
the drama’s failed protagonists,
all constipated scribblers and
football-obsessed dribblers,
those whom vanity disposes
and hypocrisy discloses
with each fatuous
pronouncement from their lips.
With all that said, bring out your dead.
It surely is a tonic to escape
these dull discourses.
What’s not to like
about a plague, apart
from quarantine and panic,
food shortages and corpses?
we’re in her basement
table cluttered with cans
a drying dying
bottle of whiskey
and her awful diet Sprite
I drink in chased shots
Amy a mix of whiskey and
warm flat diet Sprite
I see the red lateral scars
on Amy’s arms
I say something
and forget it
instant amnesia
but whatever I said
it gets her yelling
her face is a twisted grimace
and it strikes me as funny
I laugh
she doesn’t see the humor
she stands up with a shriek
and curses me
I’m trying to figure out
what I just said
I can’t stop laughing
Stop laughing!
she grabs a badminton racquet
wields it like a weapon
like a samurai sword
like a lance
with my name on it
I still can’t stop laughing
she hits me in the face
with the racquet
I stop laughing
Wap!
I keep smiling and lean into her
Wap!
I want her to blacken my eyes
break my nose
knock out my teeth
Wap!
I feel the blood start
it runs over my smile
staining my teeth
I let it ruin the front of my shirt
she drops the racquet
Oh! Oh I’m sorry
I’m so sorry baby
she finds an old rag
presses it to my nose
Lean back
I’m okay
she hugs me and says
she loves me
when my nose stops bleeding
we sit back down
have another drink
so many years ago
the memory reminds me
I’m gonna die
like Amy
she died in a bathtub
in warm soapy water
she used her old friend
the razor blade
only this time she meant it
the radio was on
when they found her
it sounds stupid but I wonder
what song was playing
as her veins emptied
and the water clouded red
I hope it was something beautiful
not some dumb DJ
or obnoxious commercial
that might have messed up her soul
cheapened it
as it drifted away
I don’t go to the wake
because I can’t face her family
because if the casket is open
I might scream
I don’t go to the funeral
because I can’t face her family
because when they lower her
into the ground
I might puke
Amy, so long girl
I still can’t remember
what I said that day
***
From: Everything Dissolves
your wife asks you to put
a bullet in her head
normally this would be
taken as a joke but
recently she has been in
immense pain and is in
no joking mood whatsoever
trust me I know
I don’t even get a smile
when I speak of Asian
hookers or dog dick
I know it’s serious then
I feel pure guilt enjoying
this ten dollar cigar
and rye whiskey
while she aches and moans
in bed well before bedtime
I’ve gotten her water
rubbed her back
and put a heating pad
on her as requested
but I still feel empty
as if I’m incapable of helping
I am making a pork
jowl cauliflower crust pizza
I put the crust on for the initial bake
I try a sample of the cut up jowl
the dog stares at me
I take out a chewed piece
for him to sample as well
he devours it and continues
licking the patio pavement
where it landed
now the fucker won’t leave
me alone and go to bed
with his ailing mother
as a dog he’s a mama’s boy
lays on her legs at night
I have to move him constantly
he also gets up out of bed
every time she rises
here lately with the disease
this has been constant
with multiple trips to the bathroom
as my cigar now burns down
I refill my glass of rye
I’ve become a fan of rye recently
a competitor to my usual bourbon
sometimes more spice is nice
my wife needs to feel
some spice right now
more than I do
as I relight this nub
I am hating myself for enjoying life
Sharks & Butterflies
John D Robinson
100 pages, Cajun Mutt Press
***
SHARKS & BUTTERFLIES
We were talking about butterflies and
how some species migrate over thousands
of miles annually, moving up to
speeds of 30mph and riding the
swirling thermals and
forceful winds.
‘The power and intelligence of
these delicate creatures can be
comparable to that of the
great white shark’ I said.
He smiled widely and nodded his
head slowly: we were stoned on
potent hash and Valium,
our eyes mere slits,
our throats dry
our minds and bodies
saturated with a heavy
peacefulness that made
discussing the beauty and
wonder of butterflies and
sharks in the same breath as
something quite natural
as then, the silent t.v.
screened pictures of the
horrific aftermath of a
suicide bombing in the beating
heart of a market somewhere
in the world.
***
For several moments afterwards
as we lay satisfied, listening to
our deep breathing and to the
dull hum of passing traffic
going everywhere and nowhere,
she said: ‘You certainly
weren’t the first and you
certainly won’t be the last,
but I’ll always remember you’
‘Thanks’ I said:
she was gone before I awoke:
a one-nighter, not even
knowing each other’s names:
she was slim, petite, pretty,
short brown hair, hazel eyes,
small soft hands and she
has a smile, so natural, so
real, true,
that’s what I remember of
her: these 30 years later,
she’d be 60 or so now,
she may be dead, she may
not be and I don’t care,
we were strangers,
then, now, forever,
she’s with me tonight
though, in heaven or hell,
it doesn’t matter,
it’s just the being together
somehow
that counts.
If she had been
a fictional character
she would have
been Sally Bowles,
her soul sucked dry
by vampires of amour,
her spirits restored
by a raided medicine
chest of uppers, downers,
in betweeners popped
on shifts, before and
after, sucked down
with chilled thermos
cups of imported vodkas
and a masking colored
juice, a queen’s ransom
of alcohol and drugs
ingested every day
of her life even with
the nursing license
on the line, “You don’t
understand what its
like,” She says, “After
that plane crash when
I was a student nurse
trying to administer
aid to the dead and
dying on the scene,
body parts everywhere,
that belonged to no one,
living a nightmare that
never ends so that, now,
whenever I hear a siren
I want to scream.”
So they give her duty
in ER, vacant eyes locked
in a perpetual thousand
yard stare, moving among
the injured wearing a
cloak of doom, a wired
free agent doing field work
for a Master’s Degree in Death.
another cold
night alone
finishing off
a bottle of
brandy
thinking of
the old flames
that surely have
forgotten about
you
it’s not a fear
of dying alone
it’s the inevitable
march to the end
the tragic nature
of a talent never
fulfilled
the constant
knowing that
no one has
ever taken
the time to
love you
it’s not that
easy to sum
it all up in
a little note
