Poetry by Robley Whitson
Learning to Speak
A word,
itself the whole sentence,
but a verb only
action pure action;
no subject no object,
never modified;
a verb unchanging,
no past or future,
no over-and-gone,
no not-yet —-
never that!
Forever.
We did not then know what
Forever
meant —-
means.
For the ever
that is this
day
year
moment —-
For the ever
that is not
all of them
together.
All of them
one,
one only —-
So no
of-them.
The Forever
That is this one
held
embraced
kissed —
that is this
one mouth
one breath
one flesh —
that is not
an everyone,
anyone.
The Forever
that is
Me.
Me only.
Both of Me.
So: Us
Me.
Me only.
Both of Me.
So: Us
Crazy Man
Crazy man in a crazy town
striding down the sidewalk
talking to someone:
urgent, urgent —-
talking into a red telephone
with the cord trailing behind
plugged into nowhere,
red phone hot-line:
urgent, urgent —
veering over to some curbside cans
and pulling off the clatter lids.
Five cans full of great stuff!
Call you back...
All right...
Keep you on hold...
Gotta talk to the garbage now.
Urgent, urgent.
People Pictures
Painting in the dark
everything night black
the black mix of all pigments,
the black absence of color.
When I finish the last
there will be a retrospective,
the body of my life work:
On wall after wall
black on black on black.
Everyone will be there
nibbling at exotic tastes,
sipping bubbled wine
from crystal glasses,
and talking ear ache talking
in trailed off artspeak sentences
without verbs or periods.
I will watch from somewhere
as they recognize their portraits
on the featureless canvas squares.
The last of the proto-realists,
I paint pictures of people
only of people,
so I paint in the dark.
Not Yet
Intimately
intimidated
by a breathing
not all my own —
as slight as a sigh
flowing through the dreams
of dry leaves
beneath fallen trees —
the sign of things
said all wrong
so long ago,
dead but ungrieved —
not yet gone off
far enough.
Wall Paper
Monotonous dots walk the walls
on the faded paper
never making up their minds —
up or down, or
back or forth, or
diagonal angle.
They seem to search for something
hidden in the thicket
of wandering rhomboids
it might be a simple square
dot dot
dot dot
or the infinities of points that
roll sun-stars into fire to
spin off round blue worlds and
twine helixes into me.
I wait for sleep
and watch them
creating
watch them
searching
while I lie here
in plain sight.
Open One Eye
I intend to open an eye —
either one first,
only later the other.
Never both together at once;
just one at a time.
Otherwise dimensions happen,
lines of sight
leading off from me
to a vanishing point.
If I look with both eyes
it will be there to see,
then the next thing
will be to go to it,
and into it.
And I know
there will be no looking back:
to where my eyes were closed,
and I could dream
whatever I wanted,
and everything slipped around
vanishing points
at the last moment,
and I could dream on
and keep looking back,
dream and look.
The Deep of Tears
Unhidden faces seen
through streaks of rain,
eyes and mouths
in wet running lines
on glass panes--
eyeing insides of drops
escaped from open sky,
mouthing overheard words
in storms of sounds
that fly overhead
surrounding infinite bones
curved and stretched out
articulated into dreams —
who distort to stir
from sleeps of rain,
who ever peer in on us
through our smeary windows.