stranded fast upon these shores as twilight deepens
by Robert Roley
stymied
before icons of the virtual
the news all apocalypse
colorado burning
words like fragments
of a shattered pane
caught up in the dream
of the calico ape
we await some loaves
and fishes thing
me i’ve become
the fakir’s apprentice
i talk to myself
sleep on the floor
wear sandals in the rain
like an off ramp jesus
cadging coin
in anticipation
of the wheel
i’ve taken up bowing
to sand
the glove box poet
by Robert Roley
gone downtown heard some old geezer gassin’
they can’t take nothin’ from you once you’re skint
holy marginalia
rat can!
upright gait
opposable thumbs
laying on shackles of spiel
in the rhyming
of grifters and lords
only the scabrous
repetition of platitudes
the myth
of the homogeneous man
gripped in the fanciful
seethe of certainty
if only they’d speak
i’d plagiarize the gods
Architecture
by Robbie Sugg
I live in a concrete monolith
cells divided by
sheetrock plaster plateglass plastic
pipeline blood vessels
cars parked in the bowels
straight cut standing tall
a clock tower (no one reads)
to top off
hotel consciousness.
Walking back from the library
cheap paint, brain colored
highlights waiter valley Oak
branches as currents
and conduits curling
in the leafless lung.
Passing under naked canopy
cold wet air biting
my thin–boned hands
didn’t notice my old friend
walking by.
Observing Glen Park
by Robbie Sugg
Clouds diffuse
over the canyon,
plank houses
rise on stilts to meet
the rice paper sky.
The age old invitation
benches under trees
to write a commotion
of birds and
talons in my
nest of hair.
Clutching umbrella tighter
Frenzy in my coat
with feathered fearless
stare of pigeons
at my feet.
Familiar smells of eucalyptus
the glimmer of rain in the air
and wind
the dust in the streets
of the fog–eyed city
bathed in the gray milk of clouds
painting the town monotonous.
Forded the crosswalk
incensed with exhaust
carried on wet breeze to
another lung.
A bench to sit on
A sidewalk to lay the soul
of my feet.
Lines in the pavement to contemplate
through which insistent birds pluck
invisible seeds
that fell from creation
now a pearl tossing
in the belly.