#249: Three Poems by Bruce Robinson

~Selected by Clara Jane Hallar, assistant editor, poetry

~This poem was previously published in Spoon River Quarterly (1991).

Dialing and Dolor

                                    la vida es sueño

            Selena’s on the telephone. Richard

is in conference. Philip’s on hold.

Rosalie is calling. Kevin

is dialing. Mark is listening.

            At the front desk Pat is decding

whether to be masculine or feminine.

Most of us have already made this decision,

some have lived to regret it.

            And where is Caroline?  Philip calls Selena,

there’s no answer. He calls Bob, but

Caroline’s not there.  He calls me,

I’m holding for an open line. “Mark, is Caroline there.”

            She is not. She is in the conference room,

speaking to herself, practicing eye contact,

practicing doing without cigarettes

for an hour and a half, studying inflections, weighing nuance.

            Through the skylight the sun lights

without connection or warmth; it’s working on a

concept, it’s on to something big. The sun is so much

like light it’s almost uncanny,

            As if masculine were feminine,

or dialing listening, sometimes there’s just

the warm contours of the telephone

when you’ve been on hold.

*****

~This poem was previously published in Pleiades (1992).

                    Indolence

Grass, bowed by its length,

Could be its own scythe.

The fires hang, homes hold,

Hills crest, questions

Are left on the window sill

Like a pie there, as if

All we think we know is only

That pie we’ve practically

Anticipated, brimming ourselves,

The tongue’s recall of apples, warm.

Problems relax with us

Like a furrow left fallow at plough time;

We sit on the porch watching November,

Waiting out neglect.  We’re left,

Left, with leaves we’d rather

The wind would gather.  We drift into attics,

Check the hay for loft: Questions are loitering

On the window in the kitchen like a

Windfall of fruit or a pie slowly curving

This November.

*****

~This poem was previously published in The Madison Review (1980).

  

                     McCloud River

We live so near

       an aging world

in which our garters

        slip; the bones

of billboards, superstructs

          of roadside

drive-in movie screens

                    like risen

Stegosauri in

                     or bare

elucidation of

           the fallow wheat

                     ocelot snow.

*****

THE STORY BEHIND THE POEMS

          It’s curious to look at and think about these pieces from two different periods (I’d say “eras” just to be grandiose, but…) of my life, and try to recapture the impetus and spirit behind them.  There was an office, and there was a train.  Harder still to recall what I felt about them when I’d finished (yes, abandoned would be at least equally appropriate) them, but I’m fairly certain I was quite happy with them, “Indolence” and “McCloud” especially.

          And then I moved on.  At the time of  “McCloud River” I had a baby daughter, about one year old, and she now has her own daughter.  And that gets me started thinking about time, a muddy concept that tends to insinuate itself into much of my writing today, and well, isn’t that odd, appears to be puttering about in a couple of the poems in this issue.

****

ABOUT BRUCE ROBINSON

Work by Bruce Robinson has appeared in journals such as Poetry Australia, Fiction, Onthebus, Greenfield Review, Opera Journal, Yo-NewYork!, and Fourth River/Tributaries, as well as in the publications listed above.  With considerable effort, he manages to keep his Google drive storage at about 97% of capacity.