Poetry: Gary Robinson

Gary Robinson

Gary Robinson lives in Ottawa Canada. He writes poetry and short stories. In 2021 he completed a novella. His poems have been published in Canada and internationally.

***

Vladimir Putin Sodomizes Steven Seagal

in the Great Planetary Bum Blast

 

Ringed in a tour de force of light

circle of applause magnetizes the binge’s evening  

Remember unconsciousness: chokehold then

a hearty lunch sails upon a boat of shit

Pay-per-view breaks out the sweaty cosmos

Live audience murmur: take selfies /

get autographs of these bad boys

All are judge or jury for a price

We laugh because we’re tired of crying

Divinities descend: deux ex machina

pregnant like the rosy asshole of dawn

thousands of cell phones become archers take aim

Valhalla suspended like the madness of Hamlet

as Ophelia gives interviews translated into blow jobs

FSB assassins link arms with the Yakuza

Lubyanka prison hovers in the shape of a lotus

the ashes of Robin Williams are arranged in a soggy puzzle

We haven’t left the cartoons of Walt Disney:

the biggest child molester in the world

Minds climb into an acrobat jerking off

jism bursting in a milky rainbow of vocals

waters stir: Venus opens her gash

Octopus in full flight / centuries

distort an army of aliens:

a porn flick starring seven alpinist dwarfs

who gangbang a Bavarian maid named Eve

Heidegger’s affectionate Nazi salute

the ghost of Hunter S. Thompson gusses

the ghost of Norman Mailer

talk show hosts launder Idols

celebrities flourish jewel studded designer jeans

adulation chisels California tans

Rehearsals are over at last

Martial artists caked with their own movies tumble out

the stadium darkens its crotch

my body begins to bellow:

I am ready to take a piss

***

 

 

Five Minutes From Now A Daughter Will Forget Me

 

 

Nothing will be left of our hearts

—Roberto Bolano

 

I am not afraid of death, I just don’t want to be there

when it happens

—Woody Allen

 

 

Cartomancy flops on the stage of moon

bigger than Shakespeare’s bald sacrosanct head

Under the performance Delhi trolls

chorus of dogs / English beer / oasis of markets

leather coats / fruit stalls / roadkill

Gangbangers don’t believe in cards

“Who gives a f**k about begging for Heaven?”

Traffic lights are out / an influx of caution

Either flying saucers or the gods

embroider night like lunatic spores

Sidewalks are simmering in our throats

throng of phantoms unable to barter space

Horns erupt like paranoid orgasms

all are getting undressed / frantic vagabonds

tourists / rush into aroma of proverbial party crashers

Moon implodes between our eyes

something begins to drown in the soul

Crematoriums run alongside Bollywood songs

The Yamuna turns out like a penal colony

prisoners bob for a crust of Chaos

Monkeys gaze like cell block guards with vertigo

Give up the ghost right now?

As flowers organize the underground

convulsions of scars break away

sky showers the voice of childhood

Traffic jams tug at the trousers of Shiva

who threatens decapitation before mythology

When a woman scratches at a car window

it’s like a whistle of magic / Her will be done

Rupees are surrendered like a Holy electric shock

mutual fingers brace

Chew on that—death may not happen just yet

A minute of struggle

moon writes its equation

laughs at the confusion of eternity

light freezes us for a second

one long second

***

 

 

o o o Jack Kerouac

 

 

If the world’s not set on fire, of what use is a verse?

—Faiz Ahmed Faiz

 

Into nightmare life drunks go with their voluminous verbs

Sun’s semen stain drips down the western sky’s nose

If there are ceremonies to observe

—a poor attempt to reinvent the severing of dreams

only laugh grope awkwardly

The path to truth is fraught with contagion a chorus of shit

to explore sculptures of love jettisoned slandered

by the thought police academic brown shirts

Poets must reconcile flashes of madness

—subterranean picnics are fine up to a point

being discharged from Hell is always traumatic

Oh, to kiss hold warm bodies once more

The wind lashes a hedge fund investor

money vomits cancerous leaves on prostitutes

a professional starting point into History’s shadowy planet of hashish

birthing between the legs of our memories

Get drunk on maws of brick houses

swallowed in public rains nebulous as the end

Can’t remember the first time

the girl spoke on the phone spinning me lewdly in a song

Groaning in this new visibility

warnings to children

—exiles from mall washrooms

fall on deaf ears

Still our graffiti tongues seek

flesh or bones

***

 

 

The Passage

 

Mute: robed

—Stars like skulls

Moon’s dividing glance

There: night’s incendiary

Armed, feudal;

Boughs: pockets where

Birds forget

The fossil metamorphosis;

Or heart

In the branches

Ignites

A lunar world:

Overturned

When daybreak flares

Cools with

First light,

Footsteps

***

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Setu, September 2022