Latest items:

Poetry

	dickerson, robert
	PROFILE About me Friends (2) Poetry (22)

latest best rating most commented

dickerson, robert, 21 january 2012

Decline And Fall

What radiance! Were those sea-borne
dolphins crowding the bow,
the sun just peeping up?
or mist-drawn rainbow?

Sigma, alpha, pi, ego
phee, omega, greeted,
arms akimbo,
the smiling lith on the beach.

At dawn we quit ship,
skipped town altogether, drove
to the far side of the isle
there being 'way too many people in port.

number of comments: 0 | rating: 5 | detail

dickerson, robert, 13 february 2012

Retort

My land is not for barter, sir
my land is not for barter, na
so here's to you, ya silly fou
my land is not for barter, na.

My people's not for buyin, sir
my people's not for buyin', oh
so there's yer pipe for smokin', sir
my people's not for buyin', na

They go to church a Sunday, sure
they go to church a Sunday, sure
and I will be assurin' ya
they go to church a Sunday, sir

They sing and praise their Maker, now
they sing and praise their Maker, now
and sure it is amazin how
they sing and praise their Maker, now

The grace o God is on 'em sure
the grace o God is on 'em, yeh
and on their work and on their ware,
the grace o God is on them, now.

You voices join together, now
and every hand a fellow find
our land is not for barter, sir
and we be people not for buyin'.

number of comments: 0 | rating: 4 | detail

dickerson, robert, 13 february 2012

In The Bistro

Valentines' Day several days away
it was charming how after a hefty meal
of coq au vin and greasy frites
and wine enough to raddle a pancreas

you shot that loaded straw my way,
me leaving, from your battery behind
the bar. Harmlessly the paper slip fluttered by
filled, assassin, with the breath of your lips

before coasting to rest on the floor--
well before that fine day when Loves
dart sizzles the air, seeking a warm breast
in which to rest and germinate song.

Discretely--though it was late and diners
few, I stooped, picked it up, flattened it out
drew it under my nose as though it were a
rose, a scented billet doux and dropped it

on the bar back to you who merely
bent far, far back and shook and shook
darkly with gallic laughter. The gall!
graceful, turncoat scion of pig-farmers.

Outside, in the cold that turned huffy
exhalations into cirrhus wreathes I smiled
that prank having warmed my bones to the red core.
(We are all just peasants with degrees.)

vowing, the coming holy day night to return
armed with a dozen straws to make of mine enemy
a laughing porcupine, my memory
for these vendettas only long, but that's about all.

number of comments: 1 | rating: 4 | detail

dickerson, robert, 9 february 2012

Why?

Unaccountably, while I was making a liverwurst sandwich
(with mustard and cornichons on rye)
the poem took a dive
off the countertop, I don't know why,

onto the floor and burst into words
which can be blunt or sharp, God knows,
There was nothing to do
but sweep it up
eat the sandwich and, and, and,
put on shoes.

number of comments: 0 | rating: 4 | detail

dickerson, robert, 23 april 2012

Burial At Sea

Into the purple waves, feet first,
along a whale's back
stuck with barnacles and whorls of worms
slips the man from the boat
who used to be a priest, then a rabbi,
buttoning his macintosh.

kersplash!

the whale glides off, laughing and spouting
the boat drifts off, the sun comes out
the atolls drift and shift, the heaven popsicle green.

'Isn't it lovely?' sputters the man
(who has lost his stove pipe) emerging
back into the air. 'Isn't it lovely?'

number of comments: 0 | rating: 3 | detail

dickerson, robert, 27 june 2012

Kosco Kat

1,3,2,4,1,3,2,4,1,3,2,4,1...
3....2.....4......
stop,sit,scratch,slip,
under the fence and disappear.

number of comments: 0 | rating: 3 | detail

dickerson, robert, 8 february 2012

Seven Basic Machines

'First the pulley. With these window washers haul
themselves up to the tip-most top and drop'.
'Yes', she said, with minimal interest. 'Next'?

'There's the lever. Useful for prising treasure'.
'Very well', she said, but I can't tell you how I try
never to pry. Go on'.

'Well, the wheel. Often invented, excellent for gliding,
singly, in tandem, in trio or more'.
'Of course', said she, 'and number four'?

'Um', said I, starting to perspire
and giving my brains a wrench--'the plane, if you desire'.
'I've never been inclined. Continue, please'.

'The wedge', I said, recalling that
a wedge could not be beaten for
dividing night from day and dog from cat.

'Then, there's always the screw', I muttered, turning blue.
'Let's come back to that', she murmured,
'please continue'.

'Lever, ah, pulley, plane, wedge, screw, ah, wheel,
what's last'? She thought and thought and thought, and
after a moment calmly cried: 'the high heel'!

number of comments: 0 | rating: 3 | detail

dickerson, robert, 22 january 2012

Uprisings

Up draws the blind. From remotest heaven
out of a perlmutter sky
falls the pure, the Brownian, upward-drifting snow
casually in high-blown whorls;
on the rail has settled a bluish inch.
It's cold', croaks the bird, on yellow, thin legs,

but I rise. Snow fills last years' garden, sifts
on sticks and galls and nodes of last years'
pride, the dormant window boxes;
outside you can hear it seethe;
it shivers, that bush
that stays green all the winter.

A day. To pass. A day to pass
till sleeping time again and blinded once more,
to sleep between footboard and bedstead; only snow--
penniless, homeless, less all those things
the fellow in the Citroen specified needing
hurtling down the Rhine, years ago;--breeding

melancholy accumulations,
detestable, sweet,
difficult to translate. There is nothing to do but go on--
Chaos death is, I heard, and frankly I'm not ready:
so many winters in one guesses it's all good,
the season, the falling snow, the sleep.

number of comments: 0 | rating: 3 | detail

dickerson, robert, 5 july 2012

Keith Haring

If you see a man of a certain age,
still slim, hair determinedly dark
but having some time ago switched to khakis
striding Eastern Parkway Plaza,
professionally proud,
a bit self-absorbed, but unmenacing,
fireworks past,
backdropped by friezes of the Brooklyn Museum,
its reassuringly old-fashioned pantheon
despite the heat, still reassuring,
and wearing a T-shirt a lighter shade of red than blood
blazoned with a baby, white but black-outlined,
palisaded with hatch-marks, black, indicating radiance,
or kineticism or both--which?
that would be me, for you see
I have just been to the Keith Haring show--
the Keith Haring show which closes soon.

What did I think of it?
You will want to know the opinion of a man
who wears exactly that shade of red.
'it brought back the era well--
the era to end all eras,
but, now, a little Keith Haring goes a surprisingly long way.'

number of comments: 0 | rating: 2 | detail

dickerson, robert, 31 march 2012

Belch

Breathless, in a net we captured you--
Ring around the yew tree
and threw you, bright-eyed, in a gilded cage
watched to see what would happen next: surprise!
you thrived and seemed happy enough.

At night you fluffed your feathers
and made yourself eggbig
for insulation--it was a nice trick:
warmth to your remotest toes.

The kitchen light suddenly turned on,
late, you'd be found head wedged
under your wing, asleep for a sec,
till you awoke, vigilant as ever.

Singing was not your forte. All day
instead, you belted out your one, sole note.
We'd hoped for better, but this was the
way you registered your will in the world.

That human obsession, Liberty, for you
meant, not unbridled skies
but freedom from assuault, which
though you never suffered, believed
eternally in the possibility of.

So day after day you sat tight
depending on a cuteness you didn't even know
you had to impel your keepers to
fill your twin cups with canary seed and tap water

till the moment you unaccountably
fell off the perch, dead, your rubber band
snapped or unwound or something like that,
to the gravel floor of the cage,
your belching days done,
there being no heaven for sparrows.

We fished you out, rolled you up
carefully in cheesecloth, little mummy,
and buried you in the back yard,
marking the site, never, with a cross, theless.

number of comments: 0 | rating: 2 | detail

10 - 30 - 100

Latest items:

Poetry

Decline And Fall

Retort

In The Bistro

Why?

Burial At Sea

Kosco Kat

Seven Basic Machines

Uprisings

Keith Haring

Belch

Latest comments:

contact with us