Tectonics
I was having a cigarette
And drinking earl grey tea with a mad dash of rum
Outside the Starbucks
Talking to this elementary school teacher.
She told me all about how much she likes working
With the kids,
And the time she accidentally said
‘Fuck’
On a field trip.
I laughed and poured a bit of rum in her cup.
After a few more pours,
She told me about her two kids
At home,
How hard it is to meet someone.
I didn’t say anything.
John then came and sat down,
He worked at the airport,
Not a pilot or anything,
But from what I heard, a pretty solid job.
He started talking about all the
Dildos
Baggage handlers find
Looking for
Bombs.
I got up to piss, the fifth empty now,
And the school teacher told me
She liked my hair,
And kissed me before I walked in.
I took a long piss,
Knowing that I have let her down:
That what she wanted
I didn’t have,
And what I had
She didn’t want.
When I came out of the bathroom,
I saw the two of them
Through the shop window,
John had scooted over to my seat,
And they were sitting nice and close.
I was out of it, out of the trouble,
The trap.
I walked out the side door
To bypass them,
Lit another cigarette,
Passed the art gallery on the corner,
And walked down Big Bend to Conoco
Planning to use the last twenty for a
Pack of reds and a sixer,
Walk across the condemned strip mall,
And listen to Brahms
In the park.
It was a quiet night, a peaceful night.
In another hour or two, John will get all that ass:
The only thing to
Save him
Now
Is the New Madrid Fault
Finally cracking and dragging us all
Into the ground.
- Robert D. Lyons
(featured in the poetry forum 08.18.12)
editor's note: Sometimes, one can change the movement of continents just by leaving the room. - mh
Hats Off, Gentlemen! A Genius
Tonight I’m listening to Chopin
With Long Island ice tea
And a cigarette.
I think of the women in my life
And I load a sheet of paper
In the typer,
But I get about half a page in
Before I rip it out,
Crumble it up,
And throw it into the garbage can
With the cigarette butts and the
Cum stained tissues.
There are many half page women
In the world:
Neither treacherous or
Angelic,
Neither seductive or
Appalling—
There are many half page
Poets
Too,
But that’s another poem
And rest assured it will be
Longer.
- Robert D. Lyons
(added 08.18.12)
Fear and Loathing
Watching the news channel
Twenty four seven,
Sinking into the madness of it all,
The anger.
Thinking about that essay,
The one that Thompson would read
And nod his head,
That great essay that will get you
On the panels with the well dressed
Liberals.
There is war, there has always been
War,
And this one does not seem any different.
There are other things I could talk about,
But why waste
Words?
I feed the dog instead,
Write down clever notes,
Screw the lid off the vodka
And type
Knowing that nothing
GREAT
Will be said here.
Nothing even decent.
I gulp down a glass of vodka
And that’s how this
Poem
Came into
Being.
- Robert D. Lyons
(added 08.18.12)
Ask Fante
Dust on the lamp,
Bachelor dust,
The dust that clings like
Misery.
There have been a lot of women
In this room,
But not one has ever stopped
To clean the
Dust,
Make tea,
Stay for dinner.
They have all been too
Busy
For such things,
And have kept me too busy
To notice it,
Until now,
Valentine’s Day 2012,
And I look deeply into that
Dust
Clinging on the lamp:
Five years
Worth.
- Robert D. Lyons
(featured in the poetry forum 04.25.12)
editor's note: Archeologists, years from now, will excavate these rich layers to find the secrets of a lost civilization - while their own dust gathers. - mh
Raindrops on Roses
Her blue eyes flicker
In the spark of the
Decomposing
Night,
As she takes his hand
Above her head
And maneuvers through the
Spilling beers and pulsing music,
For all drunken, jolly eyes to see,
Laughing, howling to eternal lust
And patting him on the back in admiration
As they swarm into the guest bedroom.
The door slams,
And it reminds me of starving roses,
Rabid dogs,
One can of beer,
A child to beat,
A neighbor to hate,
A whore to pay,
A door to lock,
Cum filled tissues,
Memories of war,
Mahogany coffins,
Unreturned phone calls,
Love letters never to be sent,
Marlboro reds,
Black and white musicals,
Walking alone in morning fog,
White wine toasts,
Flowers with chocolates
And short blonde girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes sleeping
With spiders in sultry silver webs,
And I begin to hear the bed beat against the wall louder
And guess the pattern of the sheets
Right down to the splatter of the stains,
But time still remains
To think about a few more of my
Least favorite things.
- Robert D. Lyons
(featured in the poetry forum 02.13.12)
editor's note: While some get their most, others ponder their least. Those patterns and splatters are a joy to make and a bitch to clean. - mh
You Will Be Alone With The Gods
Don’t worry about rejection, Taylor.
I have been rejected before,
But it isn’t the poetry that makes
The nights cold as winter under the sheets,
Or makes the girls with mouths like roses,
With bodies like sunset,
With bodies like thunder,
Stop knocking on your door.
Don’t worry, Taylor.
I have smoked twenty five cigarettes tonight,
And you saw all the beer.
The whiskey sets my soul furiously ablaze,
But it’s not the poetry that mutes the phone:
It’s the stale fluctuating factors,
It’s a text from an old lover,
It’s a broken shoelace,
It’s a hangnail,
It’s a psychologist scribbling on paper.
Meanwhile,
The phone has only rung once:
Wrong number.
- Robert D. Lyons
(featured in the poetry forum 11.24.11)
editor's note: Such is the lot of poets, or anyone, for that matter, who long for the lingering touch of that untouchable thing. Who you callin' "Taylor"? - mh
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