Five Poems by Robert Witmer

 

A Toy Gun, with Real Bullets

 

new music

a catatonic scale

for the poet’s requiem

 

we are but clouds

of cosmic dust

collapsing in a dream

 

apples sweeten

in the shadows

hungry birds

 

dark secrets

from a broken heart

arctic waters warm

 

water

into wine

resource wars

 

the courthouse

in the pawnshop window

antique scales

 

haves

and halve nots

taking the last peace

 

vacuum sealed

the totalitarian minds

of mixed nuts

 

fanning himself

with a meat cleaver

the butcher sighs

 

a thin rat

over broken glass

moonlight in a slum

 

rain

a gravedigger’s fingers

flipping a coin

 

gravestones

huddle in spring grass

a church bell

without a tongue

 

waves leapfrog

the ripping tide

empty pews

 

dream songs

in night’s chamber

pot

 

our eyes

glazed donuts

sweetening the whole

 

 

Addled Stop

 

No, I can’t quite recollect the name –

Some lair along the way from Fair to Middling.

I had to meet a bird (pardon my way)

And that was where she thought we ought to be.

 

The slow train lurched to a stop, a clerk smirked

At me. I smiled and gathered up my things,

Such as they were: a camera and two gold rings,

Baubles for the beauty I desired.

 

No one came and no one went

On the bare platform. I know.

I waited there until the sun went down,

And when the world grew dark I knew

 

The time had come to go, unloved again.

But then, distant at first yet unmistakable,

I heard a crow, as dark, I think, as night,

In which it grew, louder and louder,

 

Until I sensed its song was meant for me,

A coarse calling home a broken nest.

Yes, the world closed for me that night.

Fair birds were fast asleep in Oxfordshire.

 

So near a little grog shop by the tracks

I went to swill my fill of vile jelly.

Blind drunk was I to be while life went on

And on and on – mistier, farther, unwontedly.

 

 

A Few Words Worth

 

I wandered lonely from the crowd

When all at once I gazed

An older lady, slippered feet,

Two turtles on the green.

 

She cooed, then held each carapace

High above the ground,

Their heads stretched forth, but not in glee

Their lethargy it seemed to be

A vacant, pensive mood.

 

What had been done or would become

Of them I could not say.

Yet though my rhyme would strain to see

A gay and jocund company

These words with bitter tears are glazed,

My blissful solitude is dazed.

 

For last I knew the world were lost

While dancing like a daffy doll.

 

 

The Curse of the Colonel

 

so much depends

on the old man

with white hair

beside the red wheelbarrow

eating fried chicken

 

The Curse of the Colonel is a Japanese urban legend regarding a curse placed on the Hanshin Tigers baseball team by the ghost of KFC founder and mascot Colonel Sanders. The curse was said to be placed on the team because of the Colonel's anger that one of his store-front statues was thrown into a river by fans celebrating their team's 1985 pennant. The curse was eventually broken this year when the Tigers won the 2023 Japan Series for their first championship since 1985, a victory that led to wild celebrations in Osaka.

 

 

Spacetime

 

I talked to God

about repossessing

the children of fools

He said it couldn’t be done

not yet

not before the next Big Bang

so all of that is true I asked

that stuff about black holes

and parallel universes

kind of He said

but don’t get bent

out of shape

by the gravity

of the situation 

 

 

Robert Witmer has lived in Japan for the past 45 years. Now an emeritus professor, he has had the opportunity to teach courses in poetry and creative writing not only at his home university in Tokyo but also in India. His poems and prose poetry have appeared in many print and online journals and books. His first book of poetry, a collection of haiku titled Finding a Way, was published in 2016. A second book of poetry, titled Serendipity, was published earlier this year (2023).