Primal TV

Robert S. King

Remote weapon aimed, I hunt
the Discovery Channel, my easy chair.
Raindrops by millions blow against
my perfect picture window
like an ancient swelling tribe,
a ghost nation chanting, tapping bongo.
My eyes cloud over in black and white:
Watercolor faces run down
the big screen, smear and drown
to mimes with fuzzy lips, synchless
silent screams, as if they too have heard
the dead splashing back through time,
hunters hurling spears of pure water
popping our ticking but shallow hearts.

The power goes off like a low-rated sitcom
or an artificial God of light.
The big picture condenses, squeezes in;
its glass eye closes to a fading split.
The roof caves in on my radioactive fall asleep
under the critical mass of my ancestors
who wash away the soap opera
and the easy test pattern of my life.

Veterans Know a Purr Is Just an Infant Growl

Robert S. King

War is my wife; Peace my tortured child.
The jungle maneuvers around me:
flashlights, flashbacks, growls, and whistles.
At a far distance from myself,
I have grown close to my enemies, their lover now,
have sharpened their claws and stood in a scented wind.
Now in domestication my animals cry to be fed,
and there is always a girl who listens too hard.

Too easy, your arms bend easy.
Your prayer goes off with the lamp.
You brush against my hands like a generous cat
the color of night, the color of love.
Then you rise purring and
rub your way down the hall to doors with no knobs.
I know I’ll take another of your dwindling lives,
as I smoke with a waiting grin
in the room where light jams under the door.

Now I remember the night air licking its wounds,
strong men weeping in a hollow tree,
the silence in rain when the shouts have moved on.
Then silence stretching to find a voice:
light alarmed in the distant sky,
headless turtles cowering under helmets,
fingers planted in fields like carrots.

I want two throats,
one to strangle, one to sing.
I want you to wag your tail,
bite it off,
and blame me.

The Gentleman Who Woke Up as a Goat

Robert S. King

This morning a point had
torn my designer pillow, two holes
leaking exotic feathers.
I cleaned this improper room with my eyes,
my shadow on the wall tall with devil's horns.

Something was eating me.
Suddenly, I had a craving
to eat a fork,
or to say yes I can
eat every label off every can,
or to eat my mother's dress
while she was in it,
or my father's shoes too big for me,
or my wife's box of feminine napkins
not good for setting proper tables.
I wanted junk food,
some old money,
wanted to eat my way down
Wall Street through another Depression.

And when my empire was down
to the last sweet splinter,
I'd spit it out like pieces of puzzle
for the wind to spend as it will,
then ram my head
through my neighbor's wall
and ask him
if he's eaten yet.

Prophets Climbing to Machu Picchu

Robert S. King

a seance blows from lower nights
and we glance back to flickering jewels
to see our eyes lying
like old stones
we lift them from our brother's grave

hurl them ahead to crown a silent mountain
hear them landing in a better time to wear them
but they never settle they remember
us falling

us climbing the path with stones in our pockets

brother brother step aside throw faster

our eyes are rolling back to us

A Wingbeat of Hope

Robert S. King

Suppose gravity suddenly floated off into space,
lifting for the first time
the corners of our mouths.
Suppose the sky a deep blue pool
and we the divers
in a broadcast of waves moving through.

Fancy rainbows are sliding boards
into some heaven that demands
no soul's ransom for its gold.

Imagine that all dark angels
put on the jewelry of stars,
that all black holes of graves
let rise their luminous ghosts,
that all things bright enough to blind
melt together into vision.

See then the lodestar,
magnet to our rusting bones.
Believe then that the anchors on our backs
begin to beat like wings.

Robert S. King has been a publishing poet and editor for many years. His poetry has appeared in journals such as Kenyon Review, Southern Poetry Review, Midwest Quarterly, Spoon River Poetry Review, and others. He has published several chapbooks: When Stars Fall Down as Snow (Garland Press, 1976); Dream of the Electric Eel (Wolfsong Publications, 1982); and Traveller's Tale (Whistle Press, 1996). He edits FutureCycle Poetry.