Poetry by Robert R. Woods

February, 2012

Poetry by Robert R. Woods

Well, if you got through the first set of poems, your ready to continue the journey... thanks for staying with be. As I said before, I did a semester of creative writing at Oklahoma City University. Actually, I learned a lot from it. Learning something is a funny thing... you don't always learn directly from a professor... sometimes he/she will say something that just shoves you in a different direction. It's sort of what happened with me and my professor for this class. A lot of things he said made sense... a few things did not. And I feel that learning has a lot to with listening to what the professor or mentor has to says... then making up your own mind.

Poems

1. THE BIGGER BANG  2. DOGS WITH BAD ATTITUDES  3. ENDING DAY
4. SEASONAL CHANGE  5. MY SPARROW NO LONGER SINGS  6. CLEANSING  
7. SURPRISE  8. NIGHT  9. DIRECTION  10. FRIDAY, 2-17-12 10:42 AM

---

The Bigger Bang

A single thought surrounds my head,
the buzzing sound delivered to the ear…
that fear of  empty sinks, of cabinets left open,
dirty clothes piled high behind the bathroom door.


No need for exploration I know they’re there.
No desire to explain it either. The breath rushes in, 
pushes out a pale cloud of shouts, a scream, 
all life exhaled in one steady, phlegm rattling
rush that begs the absence of  light.


I do not wish to watch the coming night
dressed in that skimpy, negligee 
she always wears, one sheer strap
falling star like off her bitable shoulder.
Degenerate dwarfs weep novas
as she floats across the heavenly floor. 

Terribly blind to see her, all that silky
dark skin flung against her even darker 
mood. She won’t perfume her elbows, arms
or pits and I assume she will not sing for us, 

she’ll  merely strut about the celestial hall,
hoping that the sun will call her out 
to the backseat of his cosmic Cadillac 
for a little petty finger.  And if he lingers 
on that special spot  just long enough 
she’ll remember for a moment how full 
a woman, complete she felt right before 
the Big Bang came along and changed it all.
—rrw 1-20-12

Dogs with Bad Attitudes 

The dogs of Seventh Street are barking once again!

I’ve never seen them in the flesh but I imagine they

are very, VERY big dogs! Angry dogs, dogs with

bad attitudes. Much like me, they are duty bound to

grieve the coming night, the end of light. But I’m

told that dogs being so low to the ground can only

see in twilight shadows even when the sun is bright.

Just one more thing we have in common…

—rrw 3-31-11

Ending Day

I watch the day begin to die. I wonder why

there aren’t more mourners on the street. Just me

and a cautious, cool breeze drifting past my knees.

 Wait... A crow, somewhere out of sight, laments

the passing of the sun which rapidly descends

towards its own demise.

Down the block a barking dog, a car is heard,

it idles through the potholed alleyways; it also hopes

the sun will stay a little longer, long enough, at least,

to comfort all those grieving shadows gathering

around the grave the end of day has dug.

I hesitate to make much more of all of this than

just another tick of tock, a clicking of the lock

that holds us steadfast in the sturdy gravity

of a indomitable Earth. There’s no forgiving

we who live for nothing more than living,

for nothing more than breath in, breath out

and a stubborn prayer, a solemn wish

that night will never come. —rrw 3-29-11 (rewrite 2-2-12)

Seasonal Change

I Autumn

An oak tree patiently awaits the coming snow.

Her blacken branches stretched out,

a hopeless search for southern light,

a silent wish for those warm days when

leaves thrived, springy nights when leaves

muttered rain and thunderstorms lit the world on fire.

A time long before the transient crows began

to peck away the scaly bark from her arms,

leaving her to face winter naked and alone.

II Fall

Crossing the footbridge? Quite hazardous today;

it’s nothing more than a graveyard for dead leaves,

broken tree branches and patches of treacherous

black ice which forces any heroic fool who dares

to cross its wooden face to step with great care.

Changes in the weather always has a way of changing us,

making us more suspicious of the very ground beneath our feet;

the landscape shifts and so must we. Colder weather

heavier coats, wool caps, thick gloves make touching

each other almost impossible. Very difficult for me to feel

you... even with my mittens off, my fingers numbing instantly,

my lips already frozen together...  But no worries.

There’s always that small café near Bridge Street

which smells of used books and freshly baked bread

(and that oddly sweet scent that we have yet to identify),

a warm fire of hickory chips always burning in the old

wood stove that stands next to our favorite table.

There, we can shed our outer skins and leave them

on the rickety coat rack, warm ourselves with coffee (for me)

and tea (for you) and balmy conversations about spring

and summer— that short but happy car trip to the Gulf last year.

We can pretend (if just for a little while) that Christmas

isn’t just right around the corner, that soon the old, wooden

bridge won’t all together disappear beneath a foot of snow.

 III Winter

My Dad’s old pickup was far more excited about

sliding down the icy road that leads to town than
I was. And why not? Its fossil-fueled engine—yes,
I know, an electric car would be better

for the environment—kept it warm while

I shivered in the cab ‘cause the heater never works...

except, of course, during the summer.

But (you joked) our love is passionate!

True, or at least, obsessive  enough to stop

the icicles from forming on my gloveless hands

as I swerve and skid toward the closest grocery

store just to buy a fuckin’ quart of milk for your

morning tea. And yes, yes, there is something

(sort of) comforting in the knowledge that when

I finally make it back home (hopefully alive), you’ll

wrap me up inside that huge quilt you made, feed me
hot cocoa and allow me to smoke a few cigarettes,
indoors, while I wait for my frozen feet to thaw.

                                                          —rrw (rewrites) 1-22-12

* Notes: It takes awhile to say a poem is “Finished.” And sometimes, the writer becomes too anxious to post that that he doesn’t allow the piece to mature. So it is with this piece and to be very honest, most of my posts. But I do rewrite before AND after I put them on site. So, any time you wish to make a comment about a poem, please feel free to do so. 

My Sparrow No Longer Sings

These are the days when words stop.

A silence claims what little thought

could makes its way toward the surface

of my watery mouth or to my fingers,

which these days, refuse to type.

I could stop, yes, stop it all! All this

frivolous writing—this pretence of writing—

be more vegetable like.

Plant myself on the couch, grow roots,

anchored, trapped in a thick, muddy bay

where even the loftiest phrase

refuses to rise. Unmovable, my hands,

like limbs of an elderly elm tree,

my head an autumn leaf

shaking off the slightest wish for poetry

or some other charming, but nonsensical,

liberally educated bull.

I’d rather just sit, drool,

staring at the flat screen TV. Shifting,

nurturing my desire to not do something;

my muddled mind dissolving

into fine wet mists of nothing worth saying.

The alleyways where I roamed gathering up

sad, earthy tones for some story or poem;

those byways cluttered now by

mushrooming doubts; the amber street

lights that reached out into the soul

gone now... blind now... a burnt out bulb.

I no longer hear pleasant sounds from my sparrow…

so loud, so proud to sing... it once sang so sweetly. —rrw 3-17-11



Most of the poems in this section are short, little observations about life... about my life.

Cleansing

 Cleaning up what's left of me,

tossing all the broken pieces

I no longer need

into a plastic garbage can.

Difficult to rid myself of all

those brittle thoughts

which spent the whole of life

contained inside my leaky, brain.

Far too many to ever fit inside  

the largest Hefty Bag. For memories

are a lot like Autumn leaves:

the more you rake ‘em into  

 awkward piles of nice and neat,

That many more fall from the tree...

An endless chore... forgetting is.—rrw 1-24-12

Surprise

Off Highway 9, ‘68

They stepped carefully over the body

parts scattered along the jungle trail.

Friend, enemy?  Hard to tell.

Mostly just pieces, an arm over here, a leg or

what looked like legs over there under a pile

of bruised flesh, dried blood.

Sometimes they’d find a whole head, face still intact.

Most times not, but sometimes it’d have a shocked

look in its eyes, like the guy just couldn’t believe it,

what had happened to him... and they’d laugh.

Stateside, 2011

Today, the doctor told him, “There’s nothing

left to do... Sure, there are drugs you can take

to ease the pain a bit, but—“ 

The water from the washroom sink

feels cool in his hands, cold on his face.

From the mirror above the sink, he sees

an old man... He looks surprised.

Night

The sparrows congregate along the walk

 to gossip endlessly, just on and on

about the coming night, about the dark

and all the evils hidden there!

Like that hairless cat—that monstrous beast—

from the abandoned house of broken screens,

it always finds its way outside to terrorize them all 

with monstrous, deadly claws.

The arrogant crows, the ghostly owl

they love the taste of smaller fowl

and blend too easily within

the pleasant pretense night provides.

Yes, far too many dangers lurk inside

the shadows gathering beneath the eastern sky

as the day begins to die.

How, oh, how will they survive?

But hope can warm the coldest fear.

The moon will rise (she will appear,

she always does), her light will guide their way

toward the thick hedgerow along the lake.

And there they’ll stay, warm and safe

until the day returns, until the night

is nothing but a dream.—rrw 1-2-12

Direction

I'm falling...

                 down...

                            or is it up?

                                Direction matters little.

People...

             things...

                        time...

                                  passing by...

                                                      a breathless pace.

I grasp for shadows...

                                    they don’t slow me down...

Before me...

                  past me...

                                solid ground...

                                                        will it bend me, break me

when I hit...?

                          

Tiny bits of flesh, and blood and cartilage

scattered on the cold concrete below...

                                                                  or is it up? 

the past,

the spirit of blue jeans

 and T-shirt philosophies

dissolved into a sweaty notion,

a worry for the future of my skin 

and bones...

                    and yet...

                                   there’s no...

                                                      regret.

I shouldn't think too hard (they say) on what might be.

Instead, enjoy the breeze climbing steadily

up my legs...

                     My legs...
                                    my arms...
                                                     my whole body...
                                                                                 yearns for gravity.
                                                            

—rrw 7-10-10 (rewrites) 1-22-12

Friday, 2-17-12 10:42 AM

Feels like a good day today.

From the living room window

the gray sky outside smiles at me

through the bird stained windows

of my apartment.

 

The leafless elm trees that hang out

on Pennsylvania Ave. have humbly

accept their winter nakedness, and

with the help from a gentle Oklahoma

breeze (that doesn't seem to realize

it's still winter) wave hi, invite

me outside for a pleasant walk to the mall.

And soon I'll put some clothes on,

brush my teeth, comb what's left of my hair     

and gather up all the personal gear

I'll need (reading glasses, Levi jacket,

baseball cap and cell phone)

and make the block and a half hike

through the suburban wilderness

of the north side of Oklahoma City

to see a movie at the Dickinson.

And on my way to popcorn and

a large ice tea and a fake velvet seat

in a dark auditorium, I'll remember

our elders who tamed the wilds

of Oklahoma so I might (in my

later years) enjoy a 3-D version of--

GHOST RIDER: SPIRIT OF VENGEANCE!