Anthony Robinson
V4:E6 June 2002

GROUNDHOG DAY

       for Ezra Tishman

Back porch February and we're here
again.  Tangle of brambles creeps over the fence
brandishing dried-up blackberries.
The sun's station:  45 degrees, due west,
called soon home by the hills and the sea. 

I read you poem after poem.  The morphine
levels you out, afternoon at the back of your skull.
The scar is shaped like a Hebrew "chet," a door
dimly lit around the edges you let me touch.

I read you Hopkins, then the essay on Projective Verse,
its insistence on body and breath.
I don't have the heart to tell you this --
but I think Charles Olson's a nutcase.

Breathe in, breathe out. Your new wife
brings you dinner.  The shadows fall long.
And these poems, they are the day's news.
In. Out.  In, out: the gangly line remains
a gangly line.  And time, well, that's our blessing.

Date of Birth: October 10, 1972 Location: Eugene, Oregon Occupation: Teacher Email: antrobin@clipper.net Website: http://www.canaryriver.com Publications: Chase Park, CrossConnect, SLIDE, Samsara Quarterly, Spinning Jenny, Snowmonkey, Exquisite Corpse, etc.

- October 2002 - Conjugating Anatomies After the Flood Instruction Hey You Kids, Get That Dirty Bomb Off My Lawn! Oven-sun Bus Stop breasts Bread and Tulips A Son Born To A Family of Women variation on pollock's cathedral Leonardo’s Notebooks - Poetry by Current & Former Editors - Charming Jenna Sept. 10th the things we do for Kings must end sometime Song Leftovers I'm learning to love haiku Valet Parking at the Salvation Army Shark in Sheep’s Clothing - Stirring's Best From Year Three - Killing Cattle for Disease, Greeley, 1998 Dear Anna Body Parts for Art Hogs Loosed En Route to Slaughter Trying to Raise the Dead Groundhog Day