Welcome, Robin-curious reader!




Below are some poems from my first chapbook, "Tubing Down the Nile," available for $5 to the general public
(but if you know me well, I might trade you a copy for a pint of quality beer).

A fair warning: I use bad words. Lots of 'em, sometimes, if I'm mad enough.
So don't let the kiddies be reading this over your shoulder. Dig it? I knew thatcha could.










"What I Want"
"Dance of the Immortals"
"Divorced White Female Seeking Someone Else"
"No Butts About Him"
"Accountable"
"Struck Dumb"

 These poems, and all other poems (and photos) in "Tubing Down the Nile," are © 2003, Robin Blackburn.




Back to Home Page

What I Want

I want you
To commit the crime of passion
With me as your accomplice.
I want you
To feel my hair feathered out
Across your belly and thighs.
I want you
To suck the wine from my tongue
And lick the sweat from my neck.
I want you
To let me find your ticklish spots
And exploit them at my whim.
I want you
To drink from the hairy cup
That's filled to overflowing.
I want you
To sexually assault me
And do it RIGHT FUCKING NOW!

* First read at Austin Poetry Slam, Ego's, June 2003



Dance of the Immortals

Like thieves who crash a costumed ball,
We put on masks and change our dress
To suit our circumstances, but
We always see our true reflections
Shining in each other's eyes.

Through all our incarnations
I have known you,
I have loved you,
I have felt you in my blood and breath --
We share life though we walk through a world of death.

Like partners in a country reel,
We skip along from life to life;
We spin and twirl with strangers, yet
We end the dancing face to face.
We always meet again.
Through all our incarnations
Whether beggars
Or king and queen,
We will find each other, inevitably --
For when I see you,
You're all that I see.


Divorced White Female Seeking Someone Else

Fat businessman, fat businessman,
My mother wants me to marry you.
You look like a man who can take care of me,
You look like a man who can meet my needs,
She says,
Fat businessman.

You talk about your house and car
Because that's all you really are,
Fat businessman.
You cringe when I spout poetry
Or listen to "Led Zeppelin III,"
Fat businessman,
And my mother wants me to marry you.

You don't smoke and you don't drink,
You don't like books and you don't think,
Fat businessman.
You say you'll give me everything
If you can bind me with a ring,
Fat businessman.

Yes, you look like a man who can take care of me,
You look like a man who can meet my needs,
And my mother wants me to marry you
Fat
Business
Man.

* First read at The Hideout, Austin, Texas, February 2003



No Butts About Him

My lover has no ass.
He's got miles of lanky leg and lengthy arm,
And no ass.
It's a good day's walk for my fingers to go
From the top of his head to the ends of his toes,
But down his back, there are no hilly roads.
When there's a hole in the back of his jeans,
There's no fear that something obscene will be seen
Because there is NOTHING there -- I mean,
The man has no ass.
He doesn't have buns -- he has tortillas.
There's no anatomical pillow for my head
When we twist into a naked knot in bed,
So I have to find something ... hard to rest on instead.
Perhaps when God was handing out butts to humanity,
My lover was elsewhere,
Getting extra portions of passion, creativity and the essential insanities.
And maybe it's just my own vanity,
But to me, those are the things that make a man a man.
So even though -- or maybe because -- my lover has no ass,
I give him every piece of my ass that I can.

* First read at Words, Passion, Fire! (Erotic reading at Shades of Love Boutique, hosted by Ron Horne) San Antonio, Texas, February 2003



Accountable

Appointment books --
Rigid grids of dates and times,
Records of each fixed, predicted moment of life ...
Diaries,
Filled with feelings flowing
In sentences of sorrow I somehow survived ...
Cell phone bills,
Marking in minutes
Friendly silly conversations,
Frightening legal consultations
And each heartbroken cross-country call not returned ...
Credit card statements,
Listing the costs of hollow celebration
And the itemized wages of sin ...
Notebooks full of unused lines and rhymes ...
Letters never to be sent ...
Stubs from paychecks long since spent ...

Give me a fire
Hot enough to burn to dust
All of these reminders
Of everything I ever was
And am not
Anymore.



 Struck Dumb

Decent folks don't talk about it --
The thing that happens
When all eyes turn away from bedrooms
And towards televisions --
Those little boxes where happy families live
And problems are solved in 30 minutes.

Decent folks don't talk about it --
Not until the children are in prison,
The grandchildren are in therapy,
The little sister has grown into an old woman who's terrified of the dark
And the family reunions are silent
Because no one can think of anything else
So no one can think of anything to say.

Decent folks don't talk about it --
Not until someone blasts the closet door open with a shotgun
And lets the skeletons out to scream and run
Across the abandoned playground of the mind.

Decent folks don't talk about it --
The flabby, prodding fingers delving into child flesh,
The flaccid dick that hardens into a knife
And comes unbidden into forbidden fruit,
Slicing it open like an overripe tomato
And leaving it a rotten, ruined pulp.

Decent folks don't talk about it --
The way one sick man
Can ravage one scared child
So that she hates men and fears everything and
She raises two daughters
Who don't trust anyone and
They raise their daughters
To believe they are helpless and no one can love them and

The only reason
One abominable bastard
Can destroy an entire family
Is that
Decent folks don't talk about it.

* First read at Austin Poetry Slam, Ego's, May 2003




Back to Home Page