Deposit #10

robert d. wilson's

A depository of over 3 decades of poetry, haibun, and haiga

what is light

to the laborer

planting rice

in an ocean

made of mirrors?

autumn rain . . .

the jigsaw puzzle of

falling leaves

will he vote,

the man living

in this tin

shack politicians

call a better life?

       light rain . . .

they sleep inches

above water

what will 

he do when a

typhoon

hurries through his

shanty laughing?

cool morning . . . 

a cemetery full of

candles

i like to

stay awake until

dawn when

artists have no

time to sculpt me

        twilight dawn . . . 

a sigh between

winters

the absence

of echo when

roosters crow . . . 

and the stillness of

a young child's ashes

brother cock, 

we all have our

winter

your footsteps

leap across clouds

into the

temple you dreamed

of as a child

deep winter . . . 

trading a tin roof

for lilies

i prefer 

shadows that for 

years gave me

solace when bullets

pierced my dreams

empty streets . . .

stars in a videoke

bar drinking beer

this child

kneels in dirt 

drawing with

a stick the dreams

he'll soon forget

who does 

okra bow to, on a

windy night?

lily leaves

adrift in a bay

without light . . .

a laborer's bucket

full of snails

he skips stones

across a pond that

won't talk

sauce on

broken rice, sauce

on broken

rice; an echo sealed 

inside a brass bell

rainless night . . .

wives wait outside the

barangay hall

i sit with

you in a jeepney

wondering

which passersby

has a rifle

in a field 

of lush grass,a broken

spear head

emptying

the mind of me

a blossom

floats words across

star struck lovers

my heart,

peanut vendor?

stale air

starless night . . .  

fish writing haiku 

in the foul

mecayauan

river's bowels

the absence 

of bells on a candle

lit morning

i forget

the words to the

poems i write . . . 

an autumn wind

chasing winter

it is rain?

a passerby asks me

to text her

is there

someone to care

for the old

woman waddling past

me like a wind-up doll?

you return like

a leaf longing for

the limb it left

teach me

bamboo, the song

you sing

when moonlight flutters

like a shy virgin

sundown . . . 

no trace of last night's

footsteps

deep into

morning, clouds weave

through words

you thought i'd buy

into like a lotto ticket

yesterday,

sand, i wrote dreams

with sticks

Every Evening

Sad, the gangly bakla, a gay hershey bar staring here and there from the same spot every night with the sad Emmet Kelly look i've seen on the faces of lonely, lost, angry, socially dysfunctional beings people despise and talk about behind their backs in prayer circles and over dinner. 

look, a frog

pretending to be

someone's pet!

No one's in the market for a skinny, homely hershey bar inside a man's body dressed like the girl he thinks she is.   Her eyes; neon lights in an all night diner talking to walls between dreams no one remembers.  I want to touch him, tell her to take the moon out of his purse.  What to do ?

it's hard

being a puzzle 

no one wants

to put together . . . 

a child of walls

Some baklas are pretty, fun to be around, with a self-deprecating humor that endears you to them.  They are they, you are you, no line to cross in the non- homophobic Philippines. On stage, in comedy clubs, co-hosting family talk shows, unafraid of being strung up by insecure men on a crucifix made of barbed wire. 

A pick-up queen without takers, the hershey bar doesn't sing, tell jokes, and isn't pretty. When she talks to someone, it's to wallflowers like her,  stuck to walls at night where the moon seldom appears thanks to an abundance of rain clouds. I know the loneliness she feels, having been to hell and back and forgetful of who I used to be before I went to Vietnam, lost my virginity, watched live horror movies that never turned off, smoking opium and weed, trying hard to be incapable of thinking, walking through the wonderland amusement park with a glass filled with marbles I hadn't played with since I was a child who thought he was a princess from Venus.

Poor hershey bar, far removed from what was and wasn't, hoping she'll see the light which like the moon, hides behind clouds chasing stars..

you didn't ask

to be caught between

mirrors

in a painting

dali refused to paint

Robert D. Wilson

End of Tet -

the marks on her back, a letter

Iʼd rather not read

At the conclusion of the Tet Offensive in 1968, a girl who worked as

a laundrywoman on our base returned after a three week absence. Her

back was covered with hideous burns. Her family had been tortured

and murdered. It was a reprisal by the Viet Cong for her working on

our base. She, of course, was an innocent. She worked for us to help

support her economically strapped family. Her alliance was to her

family, not to a political belief. Like many living in the rural provinces

of Vietnam, she wanted to live a simple life free from anotherʼs

tyranny.

Fireflies

on the waterʼs surface  . . .

a house of mirrors

Standing guard in the wee hours of the morning on the bow of

the repair boat barge I was stationed on, was eerie, to say the

least. You could never relax. Stories were told in the chow hall of

Viet Cong frogmen who traveled across the small bay we were

moored in, using hollow bamboo reeds to breathe through. Like

ghosts, they appeared when a soldierʼs guard was down. The only

sound during this watch was the faint lapping of waves against

the bargeʼs hull and the steady thump thump thump of my heart.

In the distance, gunships sprayed the horizon with machine gun

shells laced with tracers that lit up the sky. More than once, I saw

my refl ection in the water. At that time of the morning, at nineteen

years of age, a variety of thoughts and questions danced in and out

of my mind.

sunrise . . .

tiny dark clouds hover

over the jungle floor

Life went on as usual during the daylight hours. People worked.

People played. People rested. The hot sun caressed our faces

like a jealous lover. For the most part, it was the only time many

of us could relax, let our thoughts wonder to better times back

home where jungles and mortars didnʼt exist. In Dong Tam, the

war was fought at night when jeeps and baskets were replaced

with automatic weapons and hand grenades. Water Buffalo were

tied up. Candles were dowsed. . . the quiet, pierced by flashes of

light, pops of air, and sickening thuds. In the morning, the jungle

floor was harvested by blowflies.

Not little monkeys

or beasts of burden  . . .

Human beings! Human beings!

Many American soldiers called the Vietnamese, “gooks”. It was

a degrading term, in the same league as “nigger” or “chink”. We

knew so little about the Vietnamese. We saw everything through

our own eyes, our own plane of experience. The Vietnamese are

smaller in stature. Many were uneducated. A humble people,

they would smile and bow when they didnʼt understand what

an American soldier was saying to them. I remember vividly, a

couple of GIs spouting gross obscenities and derogatory remarks

at a young Vietnamese man. The man didnʼt understand what the

soldiers were saying . He bowed and smiled, over and over again.

All the while, the two GIs laughed at him.

The above haibun excerpted from

Vietnam Ruminations

By Robert D. Wilson

i too

have lived

a

coney island

of

the mind

dangling

hanging

as if

from

a single thread

a high wire artist

walking

a thin rope

of

sanity

seeking equilibrium

in 

a word gone

CRAZY

i too

have

traveled

the orient

in

a time of war

and

saw teacups float by

crying

for

a

lost innocence

i too

have

marched in demonstrations

calling

for

justice

rewarded

with billyclubs

and

tear gas

woodstock

a faded memory

dangling

hanging

as if

from

a single thread

i too

have dropped acid

and

turned on

the inner light

to

have it

short circuited

by

religious potluck suppers

serving

BIGOTRY

on a platter

and

i too

have shook hands

with

the important

my

generation's heroes

finding them

to be

mindless

overrated

MANIACS

interested in

promoting themselves

dangling

hanging

as if

from

a single thread

unaware of

God's interest

in

the matter

i too

have

lived a coney island

of

the mind

traveled the orient

in

a time of war

marched

in demonstrations

dropped acid

become religious/irreligious

shook hands

with heroes

and

watched america

get

a facelift with

RONALD REAGAN

dangling

hanging

as if

from 

a single thread

over

a chasm

of

nuclear destruction

. . . and sanity scurried

robert d. wilson

Excerpted from my chapbook:

And Sanity Scurried

Non-existent Press

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robert d. wilson

©2011