Rolling out of bed
I am swinging,
Acrobatting my words.
I am a car-clown filling in
For a tight-rope walker.
I am a cheating lover,
And a wealthy mistress.
I am the octagonal weaving,
And beloved silky sheets.
I have a million counting-sheep,
And lay awake in a door.
My side is pearly bruised.
- Robert Louis Henry
(added 04.30.09)
Predictions
1. We will marry,
My children will be more like their father,
Than their father was to his own,
My children’s children will be clones,
Literally.
2. I’ll amount to fame over a project
That I didn’t take seriously,
I will be a sham,
And all the cool indie acts will hate me.
3. I’ll be that high school friend you still call,
As a weed connect,
Until one day you’re smoking a joint,
Out on your patio and a cop pulls into your driveway.
You’ll not be smart enough to get out of the ticket,
When they ask who’s selling,
You’ll tell them.
- Robert Louis Henry
(featured in the poetry forum 04.30.09)
December 6, 2008.
The glow of the summer ochre hues,
Breezing through a desolate home,
Cutting short chirping, barking, and mews,
Leaving off the danger that no longer exists,
The gentleman wanders with a feather in his hat,
The gentleman wanders with his ass out of pants,
He touches himself, as in rearrangement,
Releasing the eyes from his sunken complexion,
“I have nothin’ to do,” and
“I have nothin’ to say,” are
Phrases that murk and begin to make sense.
An honor.
An honor?
A most wonderful horror!
The generation is mine, I fall prey.
I listlessly list and randomly titter,
A feeling of man might be found in his litter,
Be his trash or his children,
The like still remains,
The generation is mine, I fall prey.
- Robert Louis Henry
(added 04.30.09)
To the writers who don't smoke
(A response to Melanie Browne's "To the writers who smoke.")
How do I hold my hands?
I tape the paper to the table,
So it cannot slide away,
Leaving the left side of my brain,
And left side of my body,
To habits, to inhale,
And slow my productivity.
When I have neither lighter nor match,
I ignite with the eye of a hot plate,
I'd sooner find a stranger than rub
Stick upon stick,
I've tried a magnifying glass, too,
But I generally write at night,
So that isn't very useful.
And for the record,
A taped paper has no mobility,
And oft' enough I tear it off,
Leaving the fake wood of my
Dining room set stuck to the tape's needy surface,
Whatever it’s composed of is left showing bare.
My poetry often tears and bares in much the same manner.
- Robert Louis Henry
(featured in the poetry forum 08.01.08)
Fall Out Scenario
“Mongoose, Mongoose?”
He didn’t respond,
I grappled my hook to the nearest branch and swung off.
“I didn’t need him anyway.”
I perched near a bird’s nest and knocked on the eggs.
They spit up on me, putrid and green.
I grabbed my woven coil vine
And descended arms lengths from a soundless ripple.
“Mongoose!”
He took off.
My stomach rumbled.
He had fed me when mice were plentiful.
But all that’s left is my own.
- Robert Louis Henry
(added 07.25.08)
Just Saying…
In six grade the tall kid—
Who must’ve been twice as full of growth hormones—
Introduced me to the concept,
That a male can be completely driven by sex.
In kindergarten that same kid—
Who would insure the word “gay” caught on—
Tried to kiss me.
I never pointed it out to him.
- Robert Louis Henry
(added 07.25.08)
At the Y
A cornered maid fulfills her duty,
And a servant boy bows his head,
A patron mustn’t get too dirty,
And love must wait until one’s wed.
The Y harbors what might not be hidden,
Humans seeking watering holes,
To choke upon a sun so smitten,
And release what must not be known.
We are animals.
- Robert Louis Henry
(added 07.10.08)
“It’s never a beautiful reminder…”
She sends me a music video,
Claims if I were to,
Finally apply my musical prowess,
And accept the fame so earnestly offered me,
Then I would probably do a music video,
With furry monster humping,
“Just to be an asshole.”
And I think,
“She’s on to me.”
And wonder if I’m predictable.
She waits for inspiration,
And I force myself to heave,
Words to a page…because…
To me:
Passion, obsession,
It’s about the same.
- Robert Louis Henry
(added 07.10.08)
“Fruit fly”
This poem exists
to be examined
as a singular sentence,
which is so debasingly long
that a scrupled, sordid, lonely,
aging retiree couldn’t wholly comprehend
what unerringly the subject—a noun—and the action—a verb—is;
overall, it is not so much a poem,
but rather a way of saying that I am
leisurely beginning to take in the smell
of my mortality absorbing into these
besmirched ramparts.
It’s more refreshing than hard nipples after living in the tropics for a decade.
- Robert Louis Henry
(added 06.23.08) |
