The ground is an absolute, the air lets you down. The way you leave your bronc sustains a compromise with violence you embrace the way you mean an oath. Forever. Without fault forfeit or regret— a repossession of what you will never let go, even when you lose stirrup grip and (so finally) your life. … Continue reading Old Rodeo Man
Parallel Means Someday the USA gets more Trumped
The problem with parallel universes is there is no such thing as parallel anything. I mean, just stand in the middle of a Montana highway and look. Two white lines that, up close and personal, look like they are parallel and exactly twenty-five feet apart. But look really, really close and you see that these … Continue reading Parallel Means Someday the USA gets more Trumped
A Genie Comes Out
I had never out-bottled before. It was five thousand three hundred and seven years, one hundred and forty-two days. And nothing. Then one day, as I was marking day one hundred and forty-two on the calendar, I hear ‘scrape, scrape, scrape.’ And I am like “Eureka! Summoned at last.” In hindsight, it probably would have … Continue reading A Genie Comes Out
A Worry of Stone
Under these mountains— murmuring stream glint, tumble soil and sand. Fret
What You See is What you Hear
Gold flash in catkins— chittering song somewhere there— Ahhh! flittering finch!
When Poems Lilted
Summer’s gone when poems lilted fibber tunes of one thing for another— self-wallows under willow-leaf— shaded frog-croak water— when bright little singings— liar airs clotting even water— enfulled a fool. Now, nothing left but winter— water songs sing ice— voiceless noise under leaf-lack willow shade. Winds shriek no name. Deplete There are several versions of … Continue reading When Poems Lilted
The History Club Plans a Field Trip
Twenty-first century Americans often forget just how shallow, historically speaking, our tenure in these plains, river valleys, and mountains is. We speak of our land, our home, our way of life, forgetting that this land was home to people long before our grandfathers came looking for furs and gold. We forget that these people had … Continue reading The History Club Plans a Field Trip
Hogs to Houston
The word "haul" reminds me of Maine, a place I have never been, and California, a place I visited once because I was in love, and Arizona, a place where I worked out of the back of a hotel for the Feds, and Maryland, a place I lived for many, many years. Most of us … Continue reading Hogs to Houston
Georgia O’Keefe’s “Vision of the Black Cross, New Mexico”
There are those for whom The Cross is the phallus church of Christboyo rising triumphant—or rampant in the nunnery; but her cross is the empty neuter nutless prong and crosscock that weighs more than even sunlight and soil— that delineates a great black barrier between pale heaven and what gray we gain of earth— that … Continue reading Georgia O’Keefe’s “Vision of the Black Cross, New Mexico”
My, How the Words Rushed By!
Though they came at me they would not stop. “You will not pay attention,” they said. “You have been attending one stopping at the hospital,” they taunted. “Have you no respect!?” They arrived and fled in one motion. I caught and held one a moment, but it was “Rushed” and would not give even its … Continue reading My, How the Words Rushed By!
Home of Have, Poems by Lee Robison 