An updated and revised version of Lee Robison's "Guarding the Cathedral" that appeared on writelee.com some time ago has been accepted and posted to commuterlit.com. You can find it at https://commuterlit.com/2021/11/thursday-guarding-the-cathedral/. Enjoy!
Lonely from Willie
As the day progressed, I heard Willie singing from his album Red Headed Stranger. And so I decided to listen to the entire thing. Here is Willie's lonely song from a very lonesome album. Can I Sleep In Your Arms from Willie Nelson's Red Headed Stranger.
It’s a Long Way from Here
(For Melani, Dru, and Samantha) to Maryland, Pittsburg, or Mozambique the eating heart is famished of. Love is in December, its feast of snow and weary. Worry is the prevalent breakfast, and the dial of the sun is careless of all wanting. Daunting is coffee, cold with the unrequited yearn of waiting. Late to party … Continue reading It’s a Long Way from Here
Of Three
I have two things and a wife, a triumvirate of something within the all order of my life. The mind with its own triumvirate of imagination, thought and memory wants—no demands— a going forth into a new gathering and brooks no traverse of its seek for scraps and litter along the way. It brings me … Continue reading Of Three
The Isolate
He waits in this emptyroom for a poem or perhaps,here in this garret, a thought from God.The room’s light casts backat him a mask, half in light,one eye—brightenough from shadows, a room wherethere is a this and an is:coffee mug on a desk, deskcluttered but solidwhere a penciled hand scrawlsor waits to scrawl when it … Continue reading The Isolate
The Green of Winter is Gray
There is nothing green, more or less, about winter; nor more or less black and white. The black of these blue mountains shadow down our yellow valley winter (summer, spring and fall.) The red dusk and dawn prophecy more or less tells the weather of our each new day a hope winter (summer, spring and … Continue reading The Green of Winter is Gray
Bunions
It’s on the left and bent left, damned thing, by a shape of my vanity’s blue boot. Am I not left enough? Behind these blue boots are rough unsuede shoes— would have marched to Selma in my fashion-faded denim red; but something else was going on that day. It wasn’t bunions or anybody’s else’s business … Continue reading Bunions
What is There to See on a Sagebrush and Prickly Pear Sidehill?
If Freddy Parchinee had not been searching for the truth, he probably would not have found it, and we would all have peace and quiet around here. I guess I should blame God, since He made it what it was and because He, in all his off-the-cross glory, was the truth Freddy expected to find, … Continue reading What is There to See on a Sagebrush and Prickly Pear Sidehill?
The Burning of Morel Brigham
Old Morley wasn’t ashes yet. But he soon would be. The joke was Old Morely was gonna burn twice, once in the Crematory Oven, and again in perpetuity in the Devil’s Workshop. Bishop Odner was not pleased about the joke or the idea of anybody—even somebody as recalcitrant as Morley Brigham—having their God-given body burned. … Continue reading The Burning of Morel Brigham
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird by Wallace Stevens
Whether or not Wallace Stevens idea in Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird was our dependency on perception when we shape our ideas of the word is not for me to say. But having precepted the poem, that is how I see it.
Home of Have, Poems by Lee Robison 