The Last Poem For Robin Poem by Richard Quinby

This is the last poem I’ll write for Robin
No more sad songs or
Lyrical longings
Enough with morbid metaphors,
Laments for lost love
I’m done with all that

Perhaps I’ll sell my house
Become a vagabond
And write
Songs of the Open Road.

Or compose cloying couplets
About rainbows, kittens and butterflies
The fresh morning dew and puppy dog eyes.

This is the last poem I’ll write for Robin
After all
Picking at scabs is unsanitary
Not to mention unsightly
And besides
It’s time to move on,
Maybe
Study iambic pentameter, compose sonnets of social satire
Or try my hand at
Tributes to my old teachers,
Patriotic paeans
And odes to a mothers love…..
Or on second thought;
Not.

I could rent a room on skid row
just a laptop, a microwave
and lots of cheap red wine.
Live out my years
boozing and brawling
and boasting
how I gave up my old life to
sleep with long legged lushes,
and write poems
filled with
real rage
and dark despair.

Or maybe I should
build a cabin in the woods
live
simply
and write poetry
about nature?
The sweeping grandeur
of sunsets
and
reveal God
in the details.
Write
sonnets about swallows,
an
“Ode to an Otter”,
but never
ever
write about
Robins.

(9/14/05)