Three Poems by Rob Plath

cats & cigarettes

 

i read that camus
had a black cat
named cigarette
tonight i picture
the aloof pair
sitting together
a big yawn
opening up around
his companion’s fangs
as albert’s smoke
curls past his eye
like the silent tongue
of nothingness

____________

 

slabs 

i
am

a

portable

morgue

seldom

do

i

move

down

the

avenues

of

the

living

w/ out

slabs

of

blue

corpses

in

my

heart

____________

along the avenues of broken lamplights 

in this neighborhood

garbage drums are dragged

to the curb before dawn

sharpens yards of leaning fences

& pale stubble of lawns

the headlights of old cars

warming on narrow driveways

the only light cutting the darkness

& the empty pails roll around

unattended all day on pavement

cracked as the tired hands

of those who return to collect

them well after dusk

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Three poems by Rob Plath

tracing 8s

i was five
when my
grandmother
died
& i remember
i’d wake up
at 2 or 3 am
to find
my mother
passed out
next to me
in my tiny bed
on nights
my father
was gone
i was scared b/c
she seemed
dead herself
it was like i was
trapped in
a coffin w/ her
& i’d shake
her awake
sighing
as one eye
finally opened
& years later
i was alone
in the hospital
room w/ her
on a bright
june day
when she died
& i shook her
by the knee
& waved my hand
in front
of her face
one eye bandaged
& the other
frozen wide open
in the sunlight
& later that night
i remembered
when i was ten
she’d read about
exercises
in a magazine
to help improve
yr vision
i remembered
the one
where you close
yr lids
& draw a
figure 8
w/ yr eyes
first clockwise
then counter-clockwise
& i tried doing it
as i lay
awake in the dark
sets of 7
as night came
on deeper

____________

 

chasms & poets

some scale
the north face
of Everest
while others claw
out of the deep pit
of each morning
& afterwards if
they’re lucky
bloodied blackened
arcs of fingernails
will dip over
the tiers of keys
of the poetry machine

____________

 

edge

between all the bridges
that i ever burned
&
that one dark bridge
calling out
to me

i
sit
&
fucking
wait

ROB PLATH

either death nor life

people always
complain
to
me
about
writer’s block

& i don’t understand
this phenomenon

a while back
a good friend gave me this
old typewriter

which i don’t actually write on
but one night when i was drunk
i put a skull
that i use as a paperweight
on top of it

resting where
the blank page would be
the empty sockets
stared back at me
the jaw hovering
over the tiers of keys

maybe they wouldn’t be
stumped for poems
if this skinless head
greeted them
before
they
wrote

but no, they neither
see death
nor
life
_________

well maybe not so good

i can
feel
it
shifting

if
i
really
quiet
myself

this hour
week
month
year

these people
these places

shifting
slower
than
smoke
dissolving
in
a
room
on
a
sunday
morning

this
marvelous
gravy
of
the
present

turning
into
the
proverbial
“good
old
days”
___________

in between atrophy and a pine box there are cages

i don’t know
what’s worse:

the medical field
feeding off
people’s fear
of dying
or
the funeral
business
taking advantage
of people’s
loss

or

in
between
staving off
shitting
our pants
& shelling out
for our own
box-in-a-hole

the
powers
that fucking be
making
us
all
pay
dearly
to
stay
out
of
those
human
fucking
cages