I can show you the blankness in my eyes
the muteness of my cries
the lack of everything i feel
written on my face
i can be the one you want the least
never the beauty but the beast
i can play this game.
unlike a shadow
i will never stand beside you,
unlike a lover
i will never touch you,
unlike a mirror
i will never reflect you
isn't that what she would like?
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Saturday, May 15, 2010
I’m falling apart
riding on the back of a giraffe.
its bones are hard
grating against mine,
chipping at my hips and knees.
There is the absolute black
of the wild,
obscuring the edges
of all the leaves and the trees.
I want to go back
to the river,
the current of the living,
but the limbs of this animal
are set on this course
carrying me off
into the contours of my mind.
His ears are up
with the sky and the leaves
and he can’t hear me asking
for him to bend or halt
and let me go.
The brown smudges
on his back are leaving cracks
in the white of his fur
and I know he too
is falling apart.
3/22/2010
Tatiana Robinson
from Advanced Poetry Workshop Spring 2010
its bones are hard
grating against mine,
chipping at my hips and knees.
There is the absolute black
of the wild,
obscuring the edges
of all the leaves and the trees.
I want to go back
to the river,
the current of the living,
but the limbs of this animal
are set on this course
carrying me off
into the contours of my mind.
His ears are up
with the sky and the leaves
and he can’t hear me asking
for him to bend or halt
and let me go.
The brown smudges
on his back are leaving cracks
in the white of his fur
and I know he too
is falling apart.
3/22/2010
Tatiana Robinson
from Advanced Poetry Workshop Spring 2010
Things with Cracks
spines of old library books where
careless children have bent the cover
all the way back too many times,
soles on old sneakers when you have
worn though the shiny outer coating
and dried out the rubber
while exploring the neighborhood,
fingernails when you are trying
to see how long you can grow them
but end up catching them in everything
and breaking them instead,
rust flaking away from the legs
of the patio table after it has been buffeted
by the damp salt breeze for years,
coffee mugs that have been elbowed from desks
and glued together to hold pens and paper clips,
old CD cases that have lived
beneath the passenger seat
as the disks that match them
filled the car with memories,
and the stained, weathered sidewalks,
the linear cracks purposely placed,
so that on the hot days,
the concrete can expand and not break.
4/7/2010
Tatiana Robinson
from Advanced Poetry Workshop Spring 2010
careless children have bent the cover
all the way back too many times,
soles on old sneakers when you have
worn though the shiny outer coating
and dried out the rubber
while exploring the neighborhood,
fingernails when you are trying
to see how long you can grow them
but end up catching them in everything
and breaking them instead,
rust flaking away from the legs
of the patio table after it has been buffeted
by the damp salt breeze for years,
coffee mugs that have been elbowed from desks
and glued together to hold pens and paper clips,
old CD cases that have lived
beneath the passenger seat
as the disks that match them
filled the car with memories,
and the stained, weathered sidewalks,
the linear cracks purposely placed,
so that on the hot days,
the concrete can expand and not break.
4/7/2010
Tatiana Robinson
from Advanced Poetry Workshop Spring 2010
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Rain
They say your tears are warm,
as they course down your cheeks,
but mine are cold,
stone cold.
My mind is blank to why they pour,
leaving circles of dampness on my jacket sleeves
and leaving salt trails down my face.
It feels good to cry,
after holding it in for so long.
I imagine that’s how a cloud feels
as it sprinkles the earth below
with rain held in for days.
Tatiana Robinson
from They Say Your Tears Are Warm
as they course down your cheeks,
but mine are cold,
stone cold.
My mind is blank to why they pour,
leaving circles of dampness on my jacket sleeves
and leaving salt trails down my face.
It feels good to cry,
after holding it in for so long.
I imagine that’s how a cloud feels
as it sprinkles the earth below
with rain held in for days.
Tatiana Robinson
from They Say Your Tears Are Warm
Watch
Its the quiet ones you have to watch,
The ones that observe you talking
instead of joining.
It’s the quiet ones
you have to ask,
because they will never tell you
exactly what they are feeling.
It’s the quiet ones you have to hold near,
because they tend to bury themselves in their fantasies,
because they tend to bottle up their pain.
Its their attention you have to grasp
or it may wander to their purpose of life.
Its their minds you have to love
because love is what they have needed all along.
And it’s you they understand,
though you think you are so deep.
They know they are like water,
they can slip right through your fingers,
Watch the quiet ones as they sleep
because sleep can be eternal.
written prior to 2007
Tatiana Robinson
The ones that observe you talking
instead of joining.
It’s the quiet ones
you have to ask,
because they will never tell you
exactly what they are feeling.
It’s the quiet ones you have to hold near,
because they tend to bury themselves in their fantasies,
because they tend to bottle up their pain.
Its their attention you have to grasp
or it may wander to their purpose of life.
Its their minds you have to love
because love is what they have needed all along.
And it’s you they understand,
though you think you are so deep.
They know they are like water,
they can slip right through your fingers,
Watch the quiet ones as they sleep
because sleep can be eternal.
written prior to 2007
Tatiana Robinson
The Portal to Visual Expression
I am throwing myself around the room.
The high, straight white walls
stained with my dirty handprints,
Blue and violet and fuchsia.
My hair sticks to my face and my naked shoulders
in wet trails
and the streams of the purple
oozing from my scalp
form tributaries over my bare bones
down the small contours
of my collar and chest.
The distinct misshapen oval stamp of a shoulder
in the corner,
a dark, thick rouge
that isn’t paint, as the
blue and violet and fuchsia
handprints.
A tear across the length of my shoulder blades,
a portal emerging from the flow of blood and paint.
All my inspirations escape through
and are now raggedly interwoven with the reality
in the violently mottled room.
3/3/09
Tatiana Robinson
from They Say Your Tears Are Warm
The high, straight white walls
stained with my dirty handprints,
Blue and violet and fuchsia.
My hair sticks to my face and my naked shoulders
in wet trails
and the streams of the purple
oozing from my scalp
form tributaries over my bare bones
down the small contours
of my collar and chest.
The distinct misshapen oval stamp of a shoulder
in the corner,
a dark, thick rouge
that isn’t paint, as the
blue and violet and fuchsia
handprints.
A tear across the length of my shoulder blades,
a portal emerging from the flow of blood and paint.
All my inspirations escape through
and are now raggedly interwoven with the reality
in the violently mottled room.
3/3/09
Tatiana Robinson
from They Say Your Tears Are Warm
Watermark: Pantoum
Time leaves its trail
like water pulling its way through the sand.
As toxins of emotion make their way to her mind,
they draw her away from the things that love her.
Like water pulling its way through the sand,
she drags her feet all the way home.
They draw her away from the things that love her
but she felt that she had to leave.
She drags her feet all the way home.
The brightly lit hallways call her back,
but she felt she had to leave.
She can see the path she is supposed to take.
The brightly lit hallways call her back.
Her ears are closed to the allure of their cries.
She can see the path she is supposed to take.
The water creates the trail.
4/3/09
Tatiana Robinson
From They Say Your Tears Are Warm
like water pulling its way through the sand.
As toxins of emotion make their way to her mind,
they draw her away from the things that love her.
Like water pulling its way through the sand,
she drags her feet all the way home.
They draw her away from the things that love her
but she felt that she had to leave.
She drags her feet all the way home.
The brightly lit hallways call her back,
but she felt she had to leave.
She can see the path she is supposed to take.
The brightly lit hallways call her back.
Her ears are closed to the allure of their cries.
She can see the path she is supposed to take.
The water creates the trail.
4/3/09
Tatiana Robinson
From They Say Your Tears Are Warm
Melody
You wonder how my fingers can move so
as though they were an extension of my mind
instead of attachments to my hand,
which is all they would seem to be
to someone who cannot hear the music.
You wonder what thoughts go through my head
as I caress the cold lifeless blocks of wood
all lined up in a row of black and white
and make them seem as if they are breathing with me.
You notice the older woman in the front row
not even trying to quiet her sobs
as though the strains of my music
were strings of haunting forgotten memories
pulling the tears from her weathered eyes.
But there are no thoughts in my head,
and I notice nothing but the dark reflection of myself
in the grand piano that is singing my melodies
its face and body polished and naked in front of the crowd of listeners.
1/20/09
Tatiana Robinson
from They Say your Tears Are Warm
as though they were an extension of my mind
instead of attachments to my hand,
which is all they would seem to be
to someone who cannot hear the music.
You wonder what thoughts go through my head
as I caress the cold lifeless blocks of wood
all lined up in a row of black and white
and make them seem as if they are breathing with me.
You notice the older woman in the front row
not even trying to quiet her sobs
as though the strains of my music
were strings of haunting forgotten memories
pulling the tears from her weathered eyes.
But there are no thoughts in my head,
and I notice nothing but the dark reflection of myself
in the grand piano that is singing my melodies
its face and body polished and naked in front of the crowd of listeners.
1/20/09
Tatiana Robinson
from They Say your Tears Are Warm
Monday, May 10, 2010
Classical Strains
Grief approached wearily,
and sat beside me in the dim movie theater.
He said nothing,
but draped his thin arm over
my chilled shoulders.
The faint tinkling of ballet on the screen
could not distract me from the burning fingers
that reached over and stroked my once dry cheeks.
Grief pointed wordlessly to the ravishing actress
dancing fluidly to the classical strains on the black and white screen,
and asked me
if her high Russian cheekbones reminded me of anyone in particular.
I could not reply.
Every breath Grief softly took,
seemed to catch mine in my throat.
My gasps were left unheard,
absorbed by the dingy threadbare carpet,
fabricated walls,
and Grief’s damp shoulder.
2/19/09
Tatiana Robinson
from They Say Your Tears Are Warm
and sat beside me in the dim movie theater.
He said nothing,
but draped his thin arm over
my chilled shoulders.
The faint tinkling of ballet on the screen
could not distract me from the burning fingers
that reached over and stroked my once dry cheeks.
Grief pointed wordlessly to the ravishing actress
dancing fluidly to the classical strains on the black and white screen,
and asked me
if her high Russian cheekbones reminded me of anyone in particular.
I could not reply.
Every breath Grief softly took,
seemed to catch mine in my throat.
My gasps were left unheard,
absorbed by the dingy threadbare carpet,
fabricated walls,
and Grief’s damp shoulder.
2/19/09
Tatiana Robinson
from They Say Your Tears Are Warm
Catching the Past
The film reels,
the harsh cold almost silence
of the wind whipping across the microphone
of an old video recorder.
In the distance, you can glimpse the
colorless sand of a three-piece playground,
generic playthings made of hollow plastic
and worn away paint.
Youth is captured in the bright, brown hair of a woman
sitting precariously on a flimsy space ship
held up by a fluctuating rusty coil.
A small piece of the youthful woman
balances in her lap
and the wind whisks away the sound of the child laughing
at this easy entertainment.
So simple the captured past.
1/22/09
Tatiana Robinson
from They Say Your Tears Are Warm
the harsh cold almost silence
of the wind whipping across the microphone
of an old video recorder.
In the distance, you can glimpse the
colorless sand of a three-piece playground,
generic playthings made of hollow plastic
and worn away paint.
Youth is captured in the bright, brown hair of a woman
sitting precariously on a flimsy space ship
held up by a fluctuating rusty coil.
A small piece of the youthful woman
balances in her lap
and the wind whisks away the sound of the child laughing
at this easy entertainment.
So simple the captured past.
1/22/09
Tatiana Robinson
from They Say Your Tears Are Warm
She loves her more than me
She loves her more than me
She loves her more than me.
I can read all the signs,
as the leaves in my tea.
She loves her more than me.
I live six hours away,
but this “her” is so close.
It’s not as though I have a say.
And she loves her more than me.
They can take wandering adventures in her car.
While of her macaroni and cheese,
I dream from so far.
Does she love her more than me?
It’s not a promise we made,
or any secret I keep.
It’s not a color that would fade,
If she loves her more than me.
1/8/09
Tatiana Robinson
from They Say Your Tears Are Warm
She loves her more than me.
I can read all the signs,
as the leaves in my tea.
She loves her more than me.
I live six hours away,
but this “her” is so close.
It’s not as though I have a say.
And she loves her more than me.
They can take wandering adventures in her car.
While of her macaroni and cheese,
I dream from so far.
Does she love her more than me?
It’s not a promise we made,
or any secret I keep.
It’s not a color that would fade,
If she loves her more than me.
1/8/09
Tatiana Robinson
from They Say Your Tears Are Warm
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