Two poems by Elizabeth Robin

At Wounded Knee

i lie on my back, reading south dakota clouds
like the child i was. but i can’t summon fluffy
cartoon whales and elephants and teddy bears

here, i see jagged daggers in the sky
bayonets skewering babies, cannonballs

flying into chiefs and warriors just disarmed
at mothers and children scrambling into the gully
surrounded by hundreds of soldiers, firing at will

banish these images and trace the outline of a buffalo’s
fleecy hump, immense horned head bent, fleeing

until it dissolves into a husk of silver dollars
and rotting meat, legacy of a people who take
what pays ……..,,,….and take …………..and take

until it disappears. a treaty, when inconvenient
conjures the escape clause to justify the slaughter

and a trail of tearmakers who won’t believe
in dreamcatchers ……………………or ghost shirts

they just look at clouds
………………….and wonder how to turn a profit

 

at the Lakota Wounded Knee Memorial, South Dakota

 

The Wild West

my spirit whirls like a dust devil
a mystery energy that soars, vanishes

the fear: what goes on
whispered in grocery lines
sketchy corner liquor marts
a local pharmacy queue

people live behind gates in trailer parks
new riders of the purple sage
filling an abandoned hollywood set
……………..the shell of a church meeting house
……………..left, like most films, a facade
…………………………………………………………………empty inside

i read strip mall signs:
…………….Check Cashing!
…………………………….Massage!
………………………………………….Tattoo!
and question if i dare shop here

but we chat in line like old friends

what can survive here, but
rattlesnakes and reptiles?

home today, a hedge of honeysuckle
under a cottonwood tree
in the morning quiet
voices waft across the camp
…………..a motor starts
…………..a poem spills onto the page
…………..a calico cat slides by
………………………….sunshine warms my face
………………………….wind dries my hair
………………………….the breeze tickles
……………………………………………………flapping laundry
……………………………………………………yapping toy poodle
……………………………………………………twittering wrens
some days, this is enough

at Joshua Tree National Park, California

The Problem With Words by Elizabeth Robin

stiff, red-splotched men straight from three-martini
lunches speak eloquently in metaphor
their urgency underscored by using ridicule–
negotiation, compromise become weakness–
as they call for boots, boots, boots on the ground

when a poet comes to despise synecdoche
that shapes the horror we accept, are there words
to squelch canned movie lines, rolled out like a game
little boys extend from their cowboy-and-indian days?

who wears these boots, sent to some extreme
and alien climate, brought to harsh tests packed
with rules unwritten, or in some alien tongue?

ask for boots, boots, boots on the ground
criticize this, and betray those thousands we bury
or ignore in VA hospitals and mental wards
while hungry tongues lap up war and swallow

drones, snipers, bombers-most-Christian,
market collateral damage in flippant phrases
tossed out like candy to greedy warmongers

call them boots
but don’t pretend
what we risk
is just a little leather
and some laces

end these little euphemisms and stomach the truth:
we memorialize dead boots but rarely support the living
ask them to kill and destroy, send our children
our brothers and sisters, our husbands and wives
to witness atrocity that ruins their psyches
leaves them homeless, in despair, suicidal
in an endless loop of paperwork and pain
recruiting boots, boots, boots and more boots

while those rigid old hawks
in polished wing-tipped oxfords
rake in their cut of the profits
by spreading their oily words

..

Elizabeth Robin retired from teaching to write. A poet of witness and discovery, she relates both true and fictional stories about her Lowcountry present and world-traveling past. Writing offers her a lens to view the world, and a strategy to thrive within its madness. See more at www.elizabethrobin.com.

Truth, or Dare? by Elizabeth Robin

once, prophesies that bearded gods

wear silver brought ruin to the gullible

gold and chocolate to the conquistador

 ..

now, rusted grainy metal rises in a sequoian

cylinder above the treeline, dwarfing pines

the toilet brush top garnished in synthetic

prickly green, scrubbing an open blue sky

 ..

the monopine dominates, and soon

borders carved in tribal violation

for pots of room service cocoa

unlimited cellphone access

and gated uniformity

render only museum adventures

where native plants and tribes live in diorama

or a gullah cabin restored, a novelty stop

complete with artifact audio tour

 ..

and someday, we may wonder what we gain

and what we lose, in our fabrications

Deus Ex Machina by Elizabeth Robin

she climbs, a methodical looping of two separate ropes

intricately attached and wound around the harness

connecting her to the hate-filled pole she scales

..

voices call from below, ma’am, come down off the pole

her chirpy voice saying, I know sir, I’m prepared

in reply to some vague, inaudible police statement

..

the pole shakes with each increment she advances

as quiet surrounds a statehouse in acquiescence

to a symbol fixed by their law: no half-mast here

..

come against me with hatred and violence, she calls

resurrecting visions of Mother Emanuel, and a bloody history

I come with God, and this flag comes down today

..

she repeats, whom shall I fear? whom shall I fear?

poses for an AP wire photo of racism, unclipped all too briefly

brave words as she rappels to policemen, hands raised

..

remembering Walter Scott and six burning churches

a KKK resurgence and its special brand of terror

and nine praying, studying words of God, mowed down

..

their kin, one by one, forgive a tenth, who prayed

in fellowship, then spat out hatred in a hail of bullets

his flag, emblem of that bigotry, flies above their coffins

..

high and unashamed. governors, legislators, wring hands

hoisted by that petard of a veiled and twisted heritage

on that statehouse post–and what should we fear?

..

a chant begins to smattering applause from a handful

taping for youtube, repeating we must love and protect

each other, we have nothing to lose but our chains

..

we see her, we hear her, thanks to that lone historian,

one cellphone recording a crime and arrest to recitations

the 23rd Psalm, the Lord is my light in call and response

..

echoes across a nation harnessed to that flag, and one woman

brave enough to dismantle our conscience in a precise act

of joyous scripture and civil disobedience, a meticulous

de-facing of the terroristic bigotry woven into stars and bars

A Split Screen World by Elizabeth Robin

Live from Las Vegas! Live from the Vatican!

Banners of a bifurcated news . . .

..

Ladies and gentlemen! On the left we have . . . Martha Stewart!

Domestic Product Line Goddess!

Miracle of the Wall Street Boom!

Exclusive contract with Macy’s!

Exclusive contract with JC Penney’s!

Exclusive contract with Home Depot!

..

On the right we have . . . White Smoke!

A packed Vatican Square!

Only the obelisk visible amongst

Praying, praising, palavering masses!

A world awaits the newest Roman emperor

In custom-made red Gucci slip-ons

Dancing shoes for hits like “Pedophilia Exposé.”

..

These, the scenes that pull away from garage-door sized windows

Frames to an unfolding drama daily

A sliver of water, disturbs into a line

Led by monochromatic bubbles speeding

Toward a turtle paddling, diving, paddling

Oblivious to an audience wondering

Do alligators eat turtles? Will the turtle see him in time?

..

Seven rectangles create an HD multiplex lining the dead space

Between the tense encounter and the gym ceiling

Like a bar code one swipes to purchase an unedited view

Channeling seven visions of a split-screen world

CNN remains on smoke, a ticker tape bottom-scrolls

A booming market surge and streaming headlines

Austria’s Klaus Kroell crashes during the Men’s Super G . . . Congressman Tom Cotton downplayed the role that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have had on the nation’s debt . . .

..

Read this and you miss the gator lunge, snap the turtle up

Only to spit it out again, a morsel needing too much ambition.

Miss the stark white egret sweeping across the murky water,

Wings floating in a lazy arc of slender grace.

Miss the pudgy bluejay dart, peck, swoop at the trespassing cardinal,

A swirl of sky-n-scarlet punctuating layered olive, avocado, and bottle greens,

Lush lagoon plantings, palmettos and crape myrtles and bamboo . . .

You see, everything in life is a choice.

..

In Las Vegas one felon among so many, Martha signs and breaks contracts

to spectacular applause, a star of the news circuit. Unashamed.

In Rome one empire, rich and well-insulated, expands its corporation with

reproductive policy dictates worldwide. Choose life. Tax free.

..

Fox remains on smoke, a ticker tape bottom-scrolls

a booming market surge and streaming headlines

Judge strikes down NYC ban on sugary drinks . . . Bloomberg appeals . . . Sarah Palin rejoices on behalf of “liberty loving soda drinkers” . . .

..

You could watch the screens all day. Some do.

You see, everything in life is a choice.

..

Or, you could stroll the stretched-wide flat sands,

Watch comedic interplay in a lowcountry lab’s fruitless sandpiper chase,

Marvel the revelations of an ebbing tide:

Jellyfish larger than basketballs, long tentacles menacing still,

Sand dollars cling, conchs bare, shells aglimmer,

Dolphins slipping along in happy splashes below pelican vees,

A sudden, singular dive-pause-waterplume, its chandelle return,

Each vista offering its own morality play.

What makes news here, does not find its way into the network divide.

..

Nor does Moms Take the Hill

Who that same day the screens did not witness

Flooding the Capital with paper dolls

A cyberbarrage from more than 80,000 women

Paper doll strings,

Eight in each,

The eight children killed every day by gun violence

In America.

But not on Fox, or CNN, or MSNBC . . . not anywhere.

..

Rather, Rachel Ray whips up her latest pork chop

In her slimmed-down self: That made news.

As the World Turns into the tedious amorality

Of a daytime saga, one affair at a time,

Screens, split in their mindless busywork

Laud the unscrupulous corporate queen,

Anticipate the Pope’s clandestine election,

Elevate numerical shifts to oracle status,

Push headlines that distract or numb.

..

Look at the sweeping tides that sway salt marsh grass

Look at the majestic ancient oak dripping mossy veils

Watch the canine melodrama of mix and mingle,

Sharing or stealing ball and stick tosses at the park

Watch the slow blur-by of chickadee acrobatics and osprey swoops

Stopping to bask in a sun-soaked patch blooming yellows and magentas and lavenders.

..

You could watch the screens all day. Some do.

A flickering worship of what they empower

A junta bystander, the man of God,

A deal-welching inside trader, the woman of Commerce,

Justify. Rationalize. Excuse.

..

Bee colonies collapse in shocking mystery.

Wetlands disappear in vast acreage.

Wells salinize in domino swoons.

Epic alterations to food and water ensue.

Young lives are snuffed out, without a thought or care.

Every day.

Eight.

..

Our screens do not split for this news.

What cannot live in America,

Who dies in America,

What threatens the very survival of Americans,

Does not live in our split screen world.

You see, everything in life is a choice.

..

Everything in life is a choice.

..

Choose life.