Poetry: Selections from John D Robinson

It’s All Over

‘I don’t let them kiss me’

she told me:

‘Usually, it’s all over

within a couple

of minutes’ she said:

‘I love

Cameron and he

loves me’ Chloe

said flatly with a

vacant expression:

Cameron takes

money from these

visitors and buys

cocaine to share

with Chloe:

Cameron controls

Chloe’s movements,

social contacts,

hold’s her bank card

and keys to her

home:

‘He looks after me’

she will tell you;

Cameron is also

exploiting a

neighbour’s of

Chloe’s, a

single mother of

a three year

old:

Chloe is aware of this

and it

doesn’t bother her and

Cameron tells

Chloe that he is

‘fucking other women’

‘He’s just being

nice and kind

to them, he doesn’t

love them

as he loves me’:

Chloe pauses

for a moment,

she rarely lets go

a smile:

‘I’ve got to go

home now, I

have a visitor in

half an hour’

‘Okay, I’ll catch

you soon, you

take care now’ I

say after her as

I rise from the

table and walk

away, just as

every other

motherfucker who

has known

Chloe, I look back,

her thin

frame, lost

in the

sleeting rain.

At First

‘Get naked, I’ll be there

in fifteen minutes,

sixty nine, you on top’

he’d text her and she’d

get excited and naked

and then, slowly, his

suggestions became

demands and then they

 

quickly became more

darker, more stranger,

more perverse and she

felt indifferent and

came to realize that he

didn’t care for her, it

was all about him and

not the love he

confessed, she became

scared and frightened

and felt terribly

isolated and attempted

a messy suicide with

prescription drugs

and red wine:

‘Initially, it was

euphoric, it was love

and I was convinced

but that changed, he

changed and I changed

and I hated my life’

she told me, as we packed

her belongings for her

to take to a place of

safety where she can

begin to reimagine a

life without a

dominating, bullying,

cowardly alpha asshole:

‘You’ll be okay’ I tell

her,

as her transport arrives:

she smiles thinly and

waves farewell

with a shaking

hand and hurting

eyes, that will

look for the hope

she once had in

abundance.

Work Experience

We’d hide-up,

feeling anxious

and excited,

myself in

particular, I was

a novice:

‘When they’ve

been gone for

about half an

hour, it should

be safe and

we’re hit it’

he said,

and we did,

we dived and

delved into

the landfill of

plastic refuse

sacks,

tearing and

ripping them

open and

scavenging

through the

spilled

contents

of rotting

food and diapers,

condoms

and assorted

crap

but

every now and

then a treasure,

I found a

1st edition of

Ferlinghetti’s

‘Coney Island

Of the Mind’

in a reasonable

condition,

but

my father, he

found a gold

watch and an

antique toy

that kept us

drunk for a

week

with

Ferlinghetti

as

company.

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.

Residue

I am the hacking opium

cough of Marty Matz

and the elegance and

mystery of Lamantia,

the natural voice

conserving Snyder,

I have the vision of Rimbaud

and the bollocks of Bukowski,

I have the steel nerve

passions of Corso

and the beat swing of

Kerouac, the

gentle swirling dreams

of a raging Patchen,

the vast windows

of Frank Lima,

like the doors of

Ray Bremser and

Bob Kaufman, are

always open,

the grinning Gagaku

of Steve Richmond

is forever

present, I hear the

roaring mouse of

McClure and the

weeping of scattered

Streets belonging

to Jack Micheline,

I see William Wantling,

he is high and

is looking for the

next hit and

follows me,

I hear Doug Draime

raise hell and the

eternal alarm for us all,

as I found

the bullet of Lew Welch,

the buzzards

circled above,

I feel

the inspirational

strength

of Di prima,

Anne Waldman,

Joanna Kyger and

Brenda Frazer and

Caroline Cassidy,

Magda Cregg and

many

sisters rise in

a literary beacon of

majestic skies,

as Dan Propper counts

down gloriously

and Charles Plymell

radiates poetic

solidarity, as

Douglas Blazek

stares with

independence

and revolution,

I know,

I am poet.

John D Robinson is a UK poet. Hundreds of his poems have appeared online and in print and he has published 13 chapbooks and five full collections of his poetry. His work regularly features in literary anthologies and journals and he has twice been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.