Ross Robbins - Four Poems

from “opiate – a narcotic drug”

2

standing on 82nd Avenue
cars were slipping past
into eternity (smooth white
milk pouring endlessly down
a mountain) whose voice boomed
from a cave drink
be quenched forever       my eyes
lit up my head            undulant
jelly roll            tacky like glue
i would dance ecstatically toward
my grave         lush grass spreading
thighs         cooing     come        come
come                      it wasn't time to climb
all gangly limbs and simple
longing            to a throne 
i'd no designs on                   but
someone said       it's time now
son           and who was i
to argue                    (i was the king
or so they said)   alas                
my duty called

---

3: in defense of dissociation

The sleeve of soft light's bend
bends down the nose's tip
a shoe's lip of a sudden
where the eyes are fixed. Insistent
end wish.             Grown unable 
to not charade.          All is
charade:            Self-Adhesive
Smile, Box of 20.        Cruelly certain 
hand to pin you—like a shove
except sustained.    Fear has paled
to gray the lines your mouth's
life's work had made around itself
its sour sound:            An-
other day.    Lungs' gushèd 
steam            what hung too
long.        Once that breath
unfogged (it seemed) some seed
then plugged into dirt would
fruit. Or else your tongue's twist
might uncurl. Either, both. You'd
swallow pills to swallow you. Belly
would swell beyond a beergut. Eyes
still stilled by that selfsame
shoe, by its perpendicularity
by its way away from you.          
You, already slipping back into
the moment that would not be
unbeen.       To wit: his hand, to show
what's smooth can, too, be hard
as mercy is not, began to build
the walls you'd thrash at 
when your sweat got hot 
and steady. He, in view of only him,
his mirrors, and you, then took 
and took and took you. You unshape
much of mulch called past 
seeped into now. And now:
          unmoor...

---

4

Seems a cindering's afoot
Sore sight for eyes     my past
a fangèd flower      hisses Turn
the other way        To think
too long invites calumny 

Life spent in a tent          (Is it
rain? Is it needles?)           The pine trees
pine, too,    and say

so       Lovely rush           Warm
warning not to be
yet freed of this

will be your lot       A lot
of many have tried
Soft needles still clatter
bruiseless impact on
canvas        Oh, sleep…

---

5

Comprehension's soft bloom ellipses its way
into you.          Caught unawares when
consumed of a sudden.        Mostly

green even cold
green.         It comes on smooth
then a bolt:            Your life
is not your life.

Crept in through cracks
by little by lot.       Will you
see the spoon and work
the works a clean second

Into the ditchvein (Oh!)
Aloof then icy-eyed you ply
an art called quiet inside.