Twine Time
Always the camellias break first.
And I get forced in, I get caught
in the shower of them, and the hotter one
within my wrist. In wood powder I rode
into camellias, stopping my cut on the stringer
for the new stairs...the usual irregular attention,
leaning down gathering cut wood,
blurred in the spray of saw dust,
the funeral of a beak down there,
the ants jagged at the slab edge
along the plywood siding...and I crouch
beside camellias, facing the wall
of my twine—the camellias break
while I saw on the ground they root
in a shower from. And I want,
as I always do, a road
coming out of them,
and raspberry briars
if they have to come with it--
something floral I always want
to be extended from—and I need a table there
with a bowl on it, and maybe not a road yet
with camellias raised by a wall--
I never completely depend on a road--
but that table with a bowl of my fruit,
and with starlings coming over the raspberry needles,
a table with a bowl of pears I reach for
for their sweetness, admiring the ones
with leaves that come unbroken with the stems,
and for the skin that lasted, and the core
I leave for the squirrels and the woodchucks,
and the syrup I leave for the hornets and the ants,
the limes tight in the shade behind them—pears,
and the storm they come out of
in their yellow leather, with ripened spots
and unripened spots still part of eachother--
even when it means coming up against the usual wall
of twine to reach them, even when it means
I get forced into my own storm--
another sweating day, another last
of the straws—I'll take the fat layers
that come with it, and the twine layers,
always the barren with the sweet, together--
I'll take the weak skin it is composed of
as much as anything, I'll take my tools
back in with me one way or the other,
I'll take the song the circular saw teeth make,
and I'll take the camellias
breaking their melons on my eyes, I'll take the herb
their shadows secrete, I'll take the floral
when I can get it, I'll take it without a road.
From Driving Face Down (2001)
Turquoise of Decency
What a turquoise of decency Van Gogh painted
his mother with.
What black tree bark strippings he purled and shaped for her hair.
And how he made her smiling stroke back at the brush in spite of
what he could not or chose not to remember to fit into
the tilt of her mouth.
And how menaced he already was in 1889.
What an imperceptible smudge he had already painted himself into.
And what unrestrained slashes the flat knife and brush continued to
lap each other with.
What white mint face oil he sallowed her skin with and evoked his mother
grounded in her womb of that color, sinking in it,
facing him from her seat, from his mind.
How humble Van Gogh was to have dipped his brushes
into the roots of hay and the palette of a billiard table
and to have cleaned his eyes with a farm worker's apron.
What a noisy cluttered peak he dragged into a field or a whorehouse.
And then how inevitable to finally drink what the wine drank from him
and finally burst and rinse everything turquoise--
wash his doctor's feet in it,
and the other side of his brother's profile,
and a spider's abdomen,
and his mother's face, in that order.
What a corrosive hump with broken teeth
he had to keep painting over—and my eyes touch it
alongside all of his strokes.
What a mother of ripeness he saw
inside an olive trunk, or a friend's chair.
What gratitude Van Gogh had. And such a watery green face of his mother
emerges on a spectral stem of cyan powder.
What knife slabs he decided not to smooth, and leave it at that.
From The Donkey’s Tale (1998)
Hooker With a Lily
I picked her up on the street corner hitch-hiking—the one wearing
an expensive overcoat hiding the rip in her skirt, loaded on Nembutal,
some other barbiturate, talking with a slur—who I bought dinner for,
anything she wanted, beef stew, two bottles of Beck’s--
the one who sees flashes when she doesn’t sleep,
the one who smells like a dewy curtain and cigarette smoke--
fucked by businessmen during the lunch hour, clubbed by cops
in Century City at the June Demonstration against the war, 1967--
the one with a twitch, the one with four sticks of grass
she’ll go through in an hour—just out of County Jail
a couple nights before where she slept with a fever in her own vomit,
some type of flu, they wouldn’t bring any water, busted
for shop-lifting some cheese--
the one that woke me at five-something in the morning
to take her home because she couldn’t sleep
and was going to come back the next night
to make dinner, and I was down
the next night telling a friend she didn’t show,
said she did me a favor by not showing--
the one that got to the ninth grade, about twenty-five,
hard creases in her face for good—who noticed the lilies
growing along the side of the building
pulled one up and took it with her when she left--
and how the moon looked stained, spotted through
the tall ivy trellis by the cheap apartment—and who
didn’t know how to type, or where to learn—who wouldn’t
be a waitress because she was “terrified” to make
mistakes in front of people—who propped herself
on a pillow after we made quick love twice
and asked me if I had any sisters
and if I “ever fucked them”--
whom I fantasized helping to get a straight job
and take care of because she was frail and bitter
and I was alone—who said her name was Cathy
at the beginning of the night and Patty
at the end of the night--
who cursed her sister for running off
with her electric hair curler--
it was how the moon looked stained or split-up
through the trellis,
it was how she got out of the car tracing the swirl edge
of the lily with her lips
and went down some street,
and how I came back, three, four times,
Cathy, Patty, and never saw you down there again.
From The Roots and the Towers (1980)
Doren Robbins’ is a poet and mixed media artist from Los Angeles and Santa Cruz, California. His work has appeared in many publications, including The American Journal of Poetry, The American Poetry Review, Cimarron Review, 5 AM, Hotel Amerika, Kayak, The Indiana Review, New Letters, Nimrod, Sulphur, and The Iowa Review. Past collections of his poetry, Driving Face Down and My Piece of the Puzzle were awarded the Blue Lynx Poetry Award 2001 and the 2008 PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Poetry Award, respectively. His recent book Twin Extra: A Poem In Three Parts (Wild Ocean Press 2015) was nominated for the National Jewish Book Council Award in Poetry.
Always the camellias break first.
And I get forced in, I get caught
in the shower of them, and the hotter one
within my wrist. In wood powder I rode
into camellias, stopping my cut on the stringer
for the new stairs...the usual irregular attention,
leaning down gathering cut wood,
blurred in the spray of saw dust,
the funeral of a beak down there,
the ants jagged at the slab edge
along the plywood siding...and I crouch
beside camellias, facing the wall
of my twine—the camellias break
while I saw on the ground they root
in a shower from. And I want,
as I always do, a road
coming out of them,
and raspberry briars
if they have to come with it--
something floral I always want
to be extended from—and I need a table there
with a bowl on it, and maybe not a road yet
with camellias raised by a wall--
I never completely depend on a road--
but that table with a bowl of my fruit,
and with starlings coming over the raspberry needles,
a table with a bowl of pears I reach for
for their sweetness, admiring the ones
with leaves that come unbroken with the stems,
and for the skin that lasted, and the core
I leave for the squirrels and the woodchucks,
and the syrup I leave for the hornets and the ants,
the limes tight in the shade behind them—pears,
and the storm they come out of
in their yellow leather, with ripened spots
and unripened spots still part of eachother--
even when it means coming up against the usual wall
of twine to reach them, even when it means
I get forced into my own storm--
another sweating day, another last
of the straws—I'll take the fat layers
that come with it, and the twine layers,
always the barren with the sweet, together--
I'll take the weak skin it is composed of
as much as anything, I'll take my tools
back in with me one way or the other,
I'll take the song the circular saw teeth make,
and I'll take the camellias
breaking their melons on my eyes, I'll take the herb
their shadows secrete, I'll take the floral
when I can get it, I'll take it without a road.
From Driving Face Down (2001)
Turquoise of Decency
What a turquoise of decency Van Gogh painted
his mother with.
What black tree bark strippings he purled and shaped for her hair.
And how he made her smiling stroke back at the brush in spite of
what he could not or chose not to remember to fit into
the tilt of her mouth.
And how menaced he already was in 1889.
What an imperceptible smudge he had already painted himself into.
And what unrestrained slashes the flat knife and brush continued to
lap each other with.
What white mint face oil he sallowed her skin with and evoked his mother
grounded in her womb of that color, sinking in it,
facing him from her seat, from his mind.
How humble Van Gogh was to have dipped his brushes
into the roots of hay and the palette of a billiard table
and to have cleaned his eyes with a farm worker's apron.
What a noisy cluttered peak he dragged into a field or a whorehouse.
And then how inevitable to finally drink what the wine drank from him
and finally burst and rinse everything turquoise--
wash his doctor's feet in it,
and the other side of his brother's profile,
and a spider's abdomen,
and his mother's face, in that order.
What a corrosive hump with broken teeth
he had to keep painting over—and my eyes touch it
alongside all of his strokes.
What a mother of ripeness he saw
inside an olive trunk, or a friend's chair.
What gratitude Van Gogh had. And such a watery green face of his mother
emerges on a spectral stem of cyan powder.
What knife slabs he decided not to smooth, and leave it at that.
From The Donkey’s Tale (1998)
Hooker With a Lily
I picked her up on the street corner hitch-hiking—the one wearing
an expensive overcoat hiding the rip in her skirt, loaded on Nembutal,
some other barbiturate, talking with a slur—who I bought dinner for,
anything she wanted, beef stew, two bottles of Beck’s--
the one who sees flashes when she doesn’t sleep,
the one who smells like a dewy curtain and cigarette smoke--
fucked by businessmen during the lunch hour, clubbed by cops
in Century City at the June Demonstration against the war, 1967--
the one with a twitch, the one with four sticks of grass
she’ll go through in an hour—just out of County Jail
a couple nights before where she slept with a fever in her own vomit,
some type of flu, they wouldn’t bring any water, busted
for shop-lifting some cheese--
the one that woke me at five-something in the morning
to take her home because she couldn’t sleep
and was going to come back the next night
to make dinner, and I was down
the next night telling a friend she didn’t show,
said she did me a favor by not showing--
the one that got to the ninth grade, about twenty-five,
hard creases in her face for good—who noticed the lilies
growing along the side of the building
pulled one up and took it with her when she left--
and how the moon looked stained, spotted through
the tall ivy trellis by the cheap apartment—and who
didn’t know how to type, or where to learn—who wouldn’t
be a waitress because she was “terrified” to make
mistakes in front of people—who propped herself
on a pillow after we made quick love twice
and asked me if I had any sisters
and if I “ever fucked them”--
whom I fantasized helping to get a straight job
and take care of because she was frail and bitter
and I was alone—who said her name was Cathy
at the beginning of the night and Patty
at the end of the night--
who cursed her sister for running off
with her electric hair curler--
it was how the moon looked stained or split-up
through the trellis,
it was how she got out of the car tracing the swirl edge
of the lily with her lips
and went down some street,
and how I came back, three, four times,
Cathy, Patty, and never saw you down there again.
From The Roots and the Towers (1980)
Doren Robbins’ is a poet and mixed media artist from Los Angeles and Santa Cruz, California. His work has appeared in many publications, including The American Journal of Poetry, The American Poetry Review, Cimarron Review, 5 AM, Hotel Amerika, Kayak, The Indiana Review, New Letters, Nimrod, Sulphur, and The Iowa Review. Past collections of his poetry, Driving Face Down and My Piece of the Puzzle were awarded the Blue Lynx Poetry Award 2001 and the 2008 PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Poetry Award, respectively. His recent book Twin Extra: A Poem In Three Parts (Wild Ocean Press 2015) was nominated for the National Jewish Book Council Award in Poetry.