John D Robinson

 

IT HELPS

‘I do these things because
it helps me to live’
she told me with a history
of swallowing sewing
needles and razor blades,
of inserting broken glass
and shards of metal into
her sex:
‘It helps you to live?’
I asked:
‘To feel alive, to reach
out to the pain, to get to
know the pain, to be one
with the pain’
she tried to smile and
failed and then she said:
‘I remember the first time
I cut myself, I can’t
remember why I did it,
maybe it was a trendy
teenager thing, but, as I
cut and watched the
blood seep, it was real,
it was a release, a relief,
like I had never known,
it gave me a freedom
from myself’
she said,
delivering a genuine
smile.

John D Robinson

FAT DAVE

He was the one who hung on
the edges of our group
friendship, who followed six
steps behind, who just didn’t
quite fit-in with the regulars:
he was fat, he couldn’t
play soccer, hit on the girls
or hold his beer: we
considered Fat Dave to be an
asshole loser, an outsider
that went on to own a large
chain of hotels and
restaurants and holiday
resorts as the rest of us
toil and toil and fuck
ourselves up day after
fucking day as Fat Dave
lounges on some fucking
sun-drenched island in
the Mediterranean, as the
rumour constantly
has it, well,
Fuck Fat Dave.

John D Robinson

A SATURDAY AFTERNOON

‘You’ve hardly spoken to me for
3 weeks and now you won’t
shut up!’ she told me:
I was beautifully stoned on
valium and codeine and some
very naughty hash: I was
attempting to engage my wife
into a conversation about
who, why? how, we are as a
species upon this planet,
what is our purpose?
beauty and horror!
and
unanswerable
questions!
that’s us!
‘You know’ she said ‘when
you do talk to me sometimes,
it makes absolutely no fucking
sense’
‘I love you’ I said:
‘There you go again!’ she said.

A FIX by John D Robinson

The calling bells
hide in the crevices
of a lost love poem,
now dead upon the
eyes of a day when
we need a fix of
love,
nothing else,
just
love,
a shot of
colour against
the windows
of whoever
may be
watching.

Three Poems by John D Robinson

STILL TIME

Fleeting
brief
blurry,
whether a day
or a hundred years
is given
and taken away
every
second
of every day
and night:
the moon is
moving away from
the earth and the
sun is dying
but there’s
still time
to get
something right.

____________

 

HANDS – DOWN

‘We are decaying’ I said
on Christmas day eve:
‘You’re so fucking morbid’
she said:
‘Maybe’ I said ‘but it’s true’
‘But today of all days!’ she said:
‘Death and dying doesn’t put
the brakes on because its
Christmas’ I said:
‘Cliché’ she said:
‘So is, ‘fuck it’ I said:
‘So is, ‘fuck you’ she said:
‘Over used’ I said:
‘Like, ‘I love you’ she said:
I lifted my glass, took a gulp
before I said:
‘Hell yes, hands-down’

 

____________

 

THE PUNISHMENT

 

‘Love never goes unpunished’
Diablo once told me one night as
we drank in a down town bar:
he laughed, when I asked why:
‘You fucking fool!’ he snarled:
‘The crown of thorns can only
be worn once’ and then he
laughed again and I looked
all around my home finding
only quietness and then I
laughed along with Diablo and
felt his embrace of frustration
as I kissed my wife goodnight,
her silhouette lit the moon
as it disappeared without a
signature.

 

____________

 

John D Robinson is a UK poet: hundreds of his poems have appeared online and in print: he has published several chapbooks and five full collections of his work: ‘Always More’ ‘New & Selected Poems’ was recently published by Horror Sleaze Trash: he was a 2020/2021 Pushcart Prize Nominee.

SKY DRAWING by John D Robinson

Your kiss is not a betrayal
but a blue smudge of a
child’s sky drawing,
a spillage of sunshine,
handcuffs of warmth,
your kiss is a passport,
it is a hammer
without
3 nails.

I NEVER STOPPED by John D Robinson

The letters would arrive,
I’d see the insignia of the
prison stamped all over:
he could barely read or
write and it must have
been a challenge for him
and he’d write with
irregularity: the letters
are simple, open and
direct: ‘God bless you
John’ he’d end all the
letters, though he held
no theological faith:
the letters were full of
promises and wishes
and sentiment, broken
repeatedly but I never
stopped loving him,
his was my father,
I got to know him
during my late teens,
we drank and fought
and had many wild
adventures:
I hold the letters now,
like one would a
small injured bird
in the cradle of
a hand,
I can feel it’s pulse
it’s spirit
it’s energy
to fly once again.

Poem by John D Robinson

MURDEROUS HAIKU

‘Love never dies’ is bullshit,

usually, it’s murdered,

you know that.

RAZORS & WRITING by John D Robinson

 

The brave dare to
live honestly,
to openly accept a
twisting fate,
the unexpected
storms,
the brave dare to
admit defeat,
to hold darkness
like a sharpened
sabre,
to look into a
mirror and see
the horror,
the brave dare to
stare down love,
to cheat diablo
and hold the hands
of every tragedy,
to roll the dice
and gamble
everything,
the brave dare to
dance across
the smiles of
rusting razor blades
and to write it
all down.

THE MAGIC by John D Robinson

Nothing to write about
except
the decay of humanity and its
implosion of violence and
selfishness and self-hatred,
nothing to write about
except
the awesome wonder of a
bee or the feeling of the
sun or rain, exploring,
touching your skin,
the infinite majesty of
Beethoven, Bach and
Sibelius, the hand-work of
Basquait, Pollock, or
Goya and the rants of
Olivier Larronde,
Shelley and Kerouac,
nothing to write about
except
the magic of
everything.