Doren Robbins Poems

I’m watching the Anthony Perkins of Psycho.
My 1968 draft board.
I like the tide when it stays out, the sea has taken enough, I said.
Please explain, he said.
...

It all came down to a crane I saw
flow into blurring dusk and shallow water.
It didn't notice me stopped there a couple of
row-boat lengths away, chewing a Tuscany loaf,
...

Fulfillment is uncomfortable, fulfillment is uncontrollable.
What is it that Dylan Thomas told of a "weather's wind…"
"that through the green fuse drives the flower" drove
his green age-
...

I meant to ask her about a cup
we brought home from Greece.
Harvesters carrying long sheathes of wheat
in the carving that spreads from the handle,
...

Stephen was an ecstatic dancer until he was twenty-one and I wouldn’t go
to see him dying from AIDS.
I didn’t have what takes to be there to make a salutation
...

I have spoken so long
and too much time
has been wasted
explaining so many
...

Below the poplar trees,
below the intricate swaying
sprays of mist, our child
not yet one year
...

A fountain remains
the only durable object from those
two years of night-shifts, drunk nights,
nightmares in single rooms. Two years,
...

I need to know the name of that bird and find out
who is making such music I never heard before.
I'd have a start if I could see a wing or a tail
or something. But it stays hidden away
...

I've been reading that prayer
of Levi Yitzhak― really
his wife's prayer, but he
wrote it down. And how
...