Michael Robbins Poems

By the sparklet of certain ciliates cesium
practices its cricket song.

Am I supposed to be impressed? My smoothie
comes with gps.

Take a left at that crustacean. You—yes, you,
with the crisis Isis eyes.

By Odin's beard, this is snowier than usual. We can
always burn the first folio.

Go bug a dandelion. You'll have
the elephant of surprise.
...

I took back the night. Wrested it
from the Chinese, many of  whom
were shorter than me.
Two billion outstretched Chinese
hands, give or take a few
thousand amputees.

A cheap knockoff, the night
proved to be — Nokla
not Nokia on the touchscreen.
Well, even Old Peng gotta eat,
Confucius say. Or maybe that
was Cassius Clay.

In me, folks, a movable object
meets a resistible force. I haven't
worked a day since the accident
of   birth. Born of  woman,
my father the same. Make love
then war. I'll bring round the car.

These children that I spit on
are immune to my consultations.
I'll have none myself. It isn't
(Write it!) a fiasco. I am small,
I contain platitudes.
...

You had a woodchuck and an opium ball.
The one ate through the furniture,
the other sat in its cage depressing me.
Now the woodchuck sheds its skin.
I have a cow behind the Dollar Bin.

You shouldn't drink diarrhea
unless you bring enough for everybody.
Turn it into a teaching moment.
Asian-American Students for Christ
have the room until 2:30.

Rumi says no donkey is a virgin,
no, nor any beast that bites the grass.
Maybe it sounds better in Persian.
An unseen force propels the carts
across the Whole Foods parking lot.

The woodchuck hasn't been born yet
I'd rather keep than you as a pet.
You'll sleep on wood shavings, I'll comb your pelt.
That animal loved you, his captor,
whom he hated. I know just how he felt.
...

The moon is my alibi. My tenders throw hissy fits.
My scalp's at the foot of the precipice.
My lume is spento, there's a creep in my cellar.
You can stand under my umbrella, Ella.

Who put pubic hair on my headphones?
Who put the ram in Ramallah?
I'm just sitting here spinning my spinning wheels—
where are the snow tires of tomorrow?

The llama is burning! My heart is an ovary!
Let's chase dawn's tail across state lines,
sing "Crimson and Clover" over and overy,
till wonders are taken for road signs.

My fish, fast and loose, shoot fish in a kettle.
The boys like the girls who like heavy metal.
On Sabbath, on Slayer, on Maiden and Venom,
on Motörhead, Leppard, and Zeppelin, and Mayhem . . .
...

I act like I know it all. But you,
you act like you know it all.
We can't both be wrong. Still,
neither of us should have children.

Your head's in a sack. In a sack
with a snake with two heads.
And my head is even older than
our initial calculations implied.

I know many names for sitting cross-legged,
none for never getting up again.
You, you speak as if you just checked,
but it's not even up to you.

Fox pulls a rabbit out of a duck
and keeps the wound-up hounds upwind.
Hedgehog carries one trick around
like a small booth atop an elephant.

And both of us, elephant and booth,
carry from birth what can't be cast off
by dying. How can we corrupt the young?
The young don't even know we exist.
...

Half of the Beatles have fallen
and half are yet to fall.
Keith Moon has set. Hank Williams
hasn't answered yet.

Children sing for Alex Chilton.
Whitney Houston's left the Hilton.
Hendrix, Guru, Bonham, Janis.
They have a tendency to vanish.

Bolan, Bell, and Boon by car.
How I wonder where they are.
Hell is now Jeff Hanneman's.
Adam Yauch and three Ramones.

[This space held in reserve
for Zimmerman and Osterberg,
for Bruce and Neil and Keith,
that sere and yellow leaf.]

Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings,
Stinson, Sterling, Otis Redding.
Johnny Thunders and Joe Strummer,
Ronnie Dio, Donna Summer.

Randy Rhoads and Kurt Cobain,
Patsy Cline and Ronnie Lane.
Poly Styrene, Teena Marie.
Timor mortis conturbat me.
...

After the first sex, there is no other.
I stick my gender in a blender
and click send. Voilà!
Your new ex-girlfriend.

You cuckold me with your husband.
I move a box with Ludacris.
The captain turns on, we begin our descent.
Be gentle with me, I'm new to this.

I say the wrong thing. I have OCD.
My obsessive compulsions are disorderly.
I say the wrong thing, did I already say?
I drive my dominatrix away.

The coyote drives her in a false-bottomed van.
He drops her in the desert. The bluffs are tan.
She'll get a job at Chili's picking up butts.
I feel ya, Ophelia, I say to my nuts.
And there is pansies. That's for thoughts.
...

I got a letter from the government.
It said let there be night.
I went through your trash.
There was night, all right.
I consider how your light is spent.

I have butterflies a little bit.
I have some pills I take for it.
I've been up since four the day before.
Agony's a cinch to sham.

Don't worry about the environment.
Let it kill us if  it can.
I give a tiny tinker's damn.
I put the ox behind the cart.
Consume away my snow-blind heart.

Fastened to a service animal
it is waiting for the beep.
It is waiting for the right to change.
Hello, I know you're there, pick up.
...