After seasons have passed,
love creates a beautiful death
as hearts crawl like tiny creatures
righteous as tender memory.
Between life and death,
we love and love until bliss
through youth, mid-life, and golden ages
as the heart begs for more.
If we are not remembered,
if love is forgotten,
then life becomes rough
and we are left unremembered.
:: 03.07.2023 ::
Oh scarlet blooms, oh fires of hell,
What wickedness do you bring?
You flicker out of reach, beyond my grasp,
Teasing me with your dangerous sting.
I long to feel your heat, to hold your flame,
And see if I can withstand.
But you remain elusive, flickering bright,
Leaving me to only yearn and demand.
Your wrinkled petals, clear and red,
Resemble a mouth stained with blood.
Oh little crimson skirts, how you taunt me so,
With your toxic and alluring flood.
I crave your potent fumes, your sickly sweet,
To dull this exhausted mind.
If only I could bleed or rest in sleep,
And leave this pain behind.
Or if your liquors could seep into my soul,
And calm this relentless heart.
But you remain colorless, devoid of life,
A mere shadow of your fiery start.
:: 03.06.2023 ::
I
Toward dark blue skies, endlessly,
Where topaz seas shimmer bright,
In your evening, blooms ecstasy –
The lilies, pills of pure delight.
In our age where plants must toil,
Lilies drink blue distaste divine,
From your religious prose, they’ll coil,
Fleur-de-lys, for bards to twine.
Lilies, lilies, none in view,
Yet in your verse, sleeves of sin,
Soft-footed women, pure as dew,
White flowers shiver within.
Always, dear man, when you bathe,
Your shirt with yellow ‘neath your arm,
Swelling in the breeze, and wave,
Above forget-me-nots, the harm.
Love comes to you in lilac’s guise,
Wild violets too, nymphs’ delight,
Sugary spittle on lips, belies,
Dark passions on a moonlit night.
II
Oh, Poets, imagine you possessed
Roses, crimson Roses, blooming bright,
Adorning laurel stems, at their best,
With thousand octaves swelling in delight!
If Banville could make them snow,
Tainted red, swirling, in a frenzy,
Blackening the eyes of those who show
Ill-disposed interpretations, not friendly!
In your forests and in meadows so calm,
Oh, peaceful photographers, Flora thrives,
Decanters’ stoppers no different in charm,
Than varied veggies with cross-grained lives!
Phthisical and absurd, they seem to be,
Navigated by basset-hounds at dusk,
After frightening drawings we see,
Of lotuses or sunflowers blue, so brusque!
Pink prints and holy pictures we behold,
For young girls making their communion,
Asoka Ode agrees with Loretto’s window old,
Heavy vivid butterflies dung on daisy’s union!
Old greenery and galloons, fancy-flowers,
Vegetable biscuits of yore’s drawing-rooms,
For cockchafers, not rattlesnakes, like powers,
Pulling vegetable dolls with colors, like in cartoons!
Grandville would have put them round the margins,
To suck in colors from ill-natured stars,
Drooling from your shepherd’s pipes, in wondrous fashions,
Creating priceless glucoses, like fried eggs in hold hats, so bizarre!
Lilies, Asokas, lilacs, and roses, in a pile,
Inspirations for poets, like me, all the while!
III
white Hunter, running sockingless
Across the panic Pastures,
Can you not, ought you not
To know your botany a little?
I’m afraid you’d make succeed,
To russet Crickets, Cantharides,
And Rio golds to blues of Rhine, –
In short, to Norways, Floridas:
But, My dear Chap, Art does not consist now,
IV
Speak not of pampas in the spring,
Black with terrible revolts and strife,
But of tobacco, cotton trees that sing,
Exotic harvests, a fruitful life.
Say, white face, tanned by Phoebus’ rays,
How many dollars Pedro Velasquez earns,
Of Habana, a city that displays,
Excrement covering Sorrento’s seas in turns.
Where swans go in thousands to roam,
Let your lines campaign, oh poet bold,
For clearing mangrove swamps, a home
To pools and water-snakes so cold.
Your quatrain plunges into bloody thickets,
And returns with subjects great and grand,
White sugar, bronchial lozenges, and rubbers, tickets
To the land of plenty, a fruitful land.
Tell us, oh hunter, if the yellownesses
Of snow peaks near the tropics, hide
Insects that lay many eggs or microscopic lichens,
And scented madder plants, two or three, provide.
Nature in trousers may cause them to bloom,
For our armies, strong and brave,
On the outskirts of the Sleeping Wood, assume
Flowers, with snouts, drip golden pomades on buffaloes’ cave.
Find in wild meadows, where the bluegrass shivers,
The silver of downy growths,
Calyxes full of fiery eggs, livers
Cooking among the essential oils.
Find downy thistles whose wool,
Ten asses with glaring eyes, labor to spin,
Flowers that are chairs, a beautiful tool,
And gem-like tonsils close to pale ovaries within.
Find flowers in coal-black seams,
Almost like stones, so marvelous and bright,
Close to their hard pale ovaries in dreams,
Bearing gemlike tonsils, shining in light.
Serve us, oh stuffer, on a vermilion plate,
Stews of syrupy lilies, a delicacy divine,
To corrode our German-silver spoons, a fate
Worthy of kings, in a color so fine.
:: 03.06.2023 ::
I feel your skin, and know it’s real
No need for questions, that’s not how I feel
It’s not the time to wonder why
Everything around me seems pale and plain
You come and go, like waves in the rain
I don’t want this, but I’ll never forget
Where we met, and the memories we’ve kept
Let’s not waste time, don’t let the memories die
Remember, remember, don’t say goodbye
I’m always alone, even when you’re near
Are we really together, or is it just fear?
We’re trapped in a cycle, where everyone steals
But when we escape, it’s like fields of ripe strawberries
I may have hurt you, left a bruise on your face
But I adore you, you have an exquisite taste
Let’s not waste time, we could have been kinder
I wish I could change, but I can’t rewind her
It should have been simpler, just you, me, and fear
But now it’s just us, as you fall ever so near
I needed you more, when we wanted each other less
I couldn’t kiss you, only regress
It’s clear to me, I have many names
But let’s not let these moments slip away in vain.
:: 03.05.2023 ::
THEIR branches bare, their trunks gnarled and old.
As I grew up, I found solace in silence,
finding comfort in the whispering breeze.
I cared not for human chatter and noise,
preferring instead the rustling of leaves.
Amongst the weeds, the burdock and the nettle,
stood a tree that I treasured most of all.
Its slender form, its mournful weeping,
soothed my restless soul whenever I called.
But now I’ve lived beyond its years,
and to my surprise, I see its stump.
New willows speak with alien tongues,
underneath the sky that we once shared in thump.
Silent and still, as if in mourning,
I stand before the tree that felt like kin.
:: 03.05.2023 ::
What sweet thoughts come with Spring’s gentle sway,
As weather stirs our festive mood and play,
And strong winds shake trees, leaves fall away,
Like late October’s colors on display.
As heaven sometimes shakes youth’s passion high,
And speaks desire as world waxes by,
Our love moves on, does my fairest maid,
Whose heart speaks the same words as mine conveyed.
God approves, as roses bloom with grace,
But creatures on earth may refuse to embrace.
I confess, as clouds weep and roses grow,
Of my love for you, with a heart aglow.
In soiled sin, I confess my love with ease,
With unworried hand and lips, like pilgrims on knees,
That touched a rough touch with gentle kiss,
And found love’s treasure, in moments of bliss.
:: 03.05.2023 ::
In this moment, as we embrace,
Our hearts entwine with tender grace,
Amidst a world of strife and fear,
Our love is born, and it is clear.
Our passion, though forbidden, true,
Renews the hope of something new,
Of love that transcends race and creed,
Of hearts that beat, with one great need.
Our time together, short and sweet,
Is filled with joy and bliss complete,
We find in each other’s embrace,
A respite from the world’s harsh face.
And even as the world around,
Comes crashing down with thunderous sound,
We hold each other, tight and fast,
And know that love will surely last.
For though our time together fades,
Our love, it will not be betrayed,
In hearts and minds, it will remain,
A time for us, free from all pain.
:: 03.05.2023 ::
In the light’s glow, I’m but a snail,
Gazing at lies poured in barrels,
And cell walls that I cannot scale,
Asking both self and all, in peril:
Do we wish to be counted, mere sums,
On charts that the government lies have spun?
Never to reach heaven’s door,
But scorched by flames of hellish maws.
It needn’t be a faceless ghost,
Whose head feels the world has caved in.
What does freedom mean the most?
What does it mean to love, and win?
What of hate, and what it costs?
When we kill our own, kin to kin,
I won’t be but a mark to count,
Reduced to digits, drowned in din,
And wars that come, like a sunrise mount,
Before dawn’s light, blood and guts fly,
Like a cat that forgot its paws’ ties.
:: March 5, 2025 ::
Vast as the rolling waves, I am
With the sea’s droplet approaching me, tender and calm
The siren’s song echoes, “I love you” through time
My soul depleted, eternally confined
Far I have traveled, across the seas and land,
Through tumultuous storms and barren sands.
To glimpse your form, to feel the warmth of your skin,
To bask in the radiance of your beauty, without and within.
For I cannot depart, without laying my eyes,
On the one I cherish, my heart’s true prize.
I fear the thought of goodbyes, of losing you forevermore,
Of being cast adrift, on the lonely sea’s endless shore.
So I wait here, vast and rolling,
With the sea’s droplet, my heart’s longing.
For the day when you will come to me,
And I will finally be complete, eternally free.
:: 03.04.2023 ::
if the Mudfoot grows cold
a tender feeling out of some dreaming seed
(and how cellohpane is plastic and clear still)
and what she touches is me and not me
and while soaring within a deep dream climbing skies
(until feelings are more than emotions)
i fell as a brilliant bird and am was ever as i
the skin crawls aways beyond a soul’s shore
sidewalk gum under my shoe)
tangerine tongue parched
by overthought words inside my head
i forget my humanity and shed my skin
and leave my mouth upon a hydrant
where children scream playing high
incessant news on bright screens
and sore thumbs pulling down
dreams as demons laughshriek
hatred of causes that cause pain
of yellow, blue and pink bruises
like uncomfortable unworlds
by an eternal fountain of afterLife
thief crook cynic (incredibly high
fragment of hell and heaven)
is disembodied voices called
trickstervillian.
Poet’s commens:
The poem “if the Mudfoot grows cold” is a free-form poem that explores the concept of identity, reality, and perception. It presents a unique perspective on how individuals perceive themselves and their environment.
The poem opens with a beautiful image of a “tender feeling” that comes from a “dreaming seed.” The use of the word “dreaming seed” connotes the idea of an abstract concept that gradually develops into a tangible feeling. The next line, “and how cellophane is plastic and clear still,” creates an interesting contrast between the tangible and intangible. The use of the word “cellophane” and “plastic” implies that things can be both transparent and yet remain unchanging.
The third line, “and what she touches is me and not me,” presents an interesting perspective on identity. The use of the word “she” suggests an external force, a person or a thing that is capable of touching the speaker. The phrase “me and not me” implies that the speaker’s identity is not fixed but is instead shaped by external forces.
The following lines present a contrast between reality and dreams. The speaker describes “soaring within a deep dream” until “feelings are more than emotions.” The use of the word “soaring” and “climbing skies” create a sense of liberation and freedom, while “feelings are more than emotions” suggests that the speaker has transcended the limitations of everyday reality.
The lines “i fell as a brilliant bird and am was ever as i” suggest that the speaker has transformed into something else. The use of the word “fell” creates a sense of loss, while “ever as i” implies a continuity of identity.
The next few lines present a contrast between the physical and the abstract. The speaker describes the “skin crawls aways beyond a soul’s shore,” suggesting a disconnection between the physical body and the soul. The phrase “sidewalk gum under my shoe” and “tangerine tongue parched” present physical discomfort, while “overthought words inside my head” suggest an abstract discomfort caused by the mind.
The lines “i forget my humanity and shed my skin” and “leave my mouth upon a hydrant” suggest a complete detachment from the physical body. The use of the word “hydrate” creates a sense of purification, while “where children scream playing high” suggests a return to innocence.
The final lines of the poem present a contrast between reality and illusion. The speaker describes “incessant news on bright screens” and “sore thumbs pulling down dreams as demons laugh shriek.” These lines suggest that the speaker is bombarded with external stimuli that interfere with their ability to dream and create. The final lines “hatred of causes that cause pain of yellow, blue and pink bruises like uncomfortable unworlds” imply that the speaker is disillusioned with the world.
The use of the word “eternal fountain of afterlife” creates an interesting contrast between the ephemeral nature of life and the eternal nature of the afterlife. The final lines “thief crook cynic (incredibly high fragment of hell and heaven) is disembodied voices called trickstervillian” suggest that the speaker’s reality is shaped by external forces, and that their identity is constantly evolving.
Overall, the poem “if the Mudfoot grows cold” presents a unique perspective on identity, reality, and perception. The use of vivid imagery and contrasting ideas creates a sense of ambiguity that allows the reader to interpret the poem in their own way.
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E.P. Robles | Poetry 
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