MICHAEL ROBINS
Living Statues on Horseback
A flute is not unlike fluency. Step right up
for my captain speaks slowly, heartsome,
he declares in lieu of Q. He covets an enemy
drawn from the earth & swung, & neck.
If shadow conquers light, if in the first ring
is a white house, then in the second ring
a stand of donnybrook, of hum, of convoy.
We are engaged in a great civil war, a single,
radiant balloon conveys the circus & rising.
It's a fine day, really. My captain declares
like all this world is strung inside a piano,
as though every hammer produces song.
+++
The Greatest Bareback Rider of All Time
& so passes a train full of animals & straw,
the dog who ponders where am I going,
where have I been. The momentary road
(duh), our feet in the ocean littered with Q.
Before the show no father took my hand
around a peach. I'm process from the seed
regardless, query pressed like a resting place
between circus & circumference. This train
the apple, that other train the ring of fire.
Stoop low, for many are welcomed aboard
dressed in question. For the mannerly dog
from Georgia I have the blinding affections.
+++
The Glorious Paragon of All Parades
To back from the source, to bring forth
in a box this country like a Q sawed in two.
Flags rose inside the tent, a clear portrait
of our captain as the house lights dimmed.
The buildings perform mid-air pirouettes,
a second burning like a flue or fuse. See also
trapeze, see also the wedge for my captain.
With the donnybrook I could say also trees,
I could say also Q's fill the air. In the stands
some cried out for the implausible heights,
some for that which is great in achievement.
In the streets some cried for those crying.