WHALE DUTY
I awake in mourning light,
The raw bent sunshine
glows into my skeletal shield
and draws out life of breath.
It pulsates in the air.
It grows into
a tiny whirl,
a flashing pinwheel
of spoken dreams.
It instructs the student prudently: “Beware.”
I walk the path
with lightened steps
(or have I grown blind, or deaf?)
The dark is a cool pool
of seeping fluids,
whispering echoes into tornadoes,
As I turn to face a vacant plain.
The figure’s gone,
Madonna smile
Once more forgotten
to tie the barbwire tie.
The spike is pressed
down willing flesh/
An end to splutterer’s sperm.
SPONTANEOUS REBIRTH
I see/
I see all,
I feel/
I feel all.
Cracked egg and spilled guts/
Mucus Milk, mother of man,
Hear my scraping, itching cry,
Spin and turn me, wrap me up,
Cover my head, shield my eyes,
Keep me by your side,
Guide me,
Bury me with your warm sand,
Bring the moon over-
Let it cool,
Let it sweep shadows.
I lay a thousand years.
Sounds fly over me in the night.
The beating of a thousand hearts
accompany me in my heaving.
The break of black,
The parting of seas
move me in their turn.
Someone is over/
Footsteps soft/
Moccasins upon the earth/
The rescuers-graverobbers of the living.
They search for Green.
The wind puffs dry,
A haze spreads clean.
A glaze of glue sticks to the feet.
The swamp vomits its garbage out of the pipes
On to the beach,
Where it hardens molasses.
Charcoal chips rain to the ground
and Mary goes back to sleep.
You drove me,
You drove me too far,
You scarred,
You sucked,
You plucked-
One by one
The hairs/ the beak
Split, Split deep
In In In,
The pump/
Paralyzed, sacrificed;
The ice/ the Christ,
The sliver shiver of fright.
I turned,
I wormed,
I reached/
I beat and beat,
I flung,
I spun,
I clung-
Heaved,
Pushed,
Grabbed and touched
the hot cheek/
Asphalt, Linoleum tile.
It burned,
It spurned,
It melted down into a puddle of parasites
That ate and dissolved/
Calcium beasts.
See the man,
See the man
Out on the line,
Flying into the night
With wings of steel-
Vira has come.
She wasn’t afraid;
She cradled him with her heart
And breathed in the light of day.
DESPERATION RETURN
The alley slides between the stacks
of window panes and craning necks
with drawn-out string and wrung-out rags/
the dustpan drums left to be had
by foraging troops of wine-breath sages/
the City’s dregs, the tome’s last pages.
And Mrs. Murphy gazes down
upon the crowned heads
and pronounces her benediction:
“This is our last,
our one best hope,
our failing light,
our scattered ghost,
our crushing heart,
our brain’s tumor,
our screaming reign,
our mad last dash,
our fling in space,
our raised topped torch,
our sailor’s grace.”
The filtered rays stretch shadow’s ground,
A quiet pale descends;
The army of the dead marches on (a few stragglers fallen down).
A prayer is said.
The rats come out to play.
Robert Fabre has been writing poetry for over 30 years. The most recent publications of his work have been in the magazines Foliate Oak, Long Story Short, FreeXpresSion, Ceremony: A Journal of Poetry and Other Arts, Eye on Life Magazine, and Bare Fiction, and on the website: https://theshelteredpoet.blogspot.com.
Bindweed Magazine 