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The Poetry of Robert Lesher
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The Writing Forum’s Writer of the Month - November 2011
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POET’S BIO:
I live, with my wife Jana, in Fullerton, California, in the house that I was raised in. I was a journalism major throughout high school and university.
I have had poetry published in The Cathartic, Voices International and Electrum magazines. Recently, I had a non-fiction short piece published in Splash of Red online magazine.
For the past forty-plus years I have been a professional musician, within the blues idiom, living in Southern California and on Vancouver Island in British Columbia. In 2009, I was inducted into the Victoria Music Hall of Fame, in British Columbia, Canada, along with the rest of the band I was in, circa 1970-74. To see pictures, please click here. I have been with the same band, Tupelo Blue, since 1995 and wrote lyrics and melody lines for 14 of 15 tunes on our self-titled CD, released in 2000 to excellent reviews in LA Jazz, and Blues Revue Magazine. Avaliable, as well, is an LP, that I recorded with the City Blues Band in 1967. It is now a collectors item and is offered in its original vinyl copy or a re-mastered CD by clicking here.
“With the taste of fresh-brewed coffee in my mouth, I read poetry every morning at the kitchen table as our housecats ponder the sounds of the day waking-up. It is my treat to myself.”
Robert’s Email: rlbluesharp@gmail.com
POEMS BY ROBERT LESHER
Click on any button next to any poem title in
the list below to be linked to that poem:
 7:45 A.M
Sometimes, I feel Ohio
Honest Man
Saturday’s Rain
Geese
The Gray Cat
The Need to Dream
Our Convenience of Deceit
Christmas is Over
Glen at CMA TV Awards
Mouse
Dry River Blues
Dots and Circles
When Orson Wells Wrote a
Screenplay About Patriotism
My Brother
Waking Up
Sometimes I Yell at the Cat
The Green Boat
James Bay: Winter of 1970
ARRIVING ON THE EVE
GARY THE BASS PLAYER
PORT ALBERNI
7:45 A.M
Crowns of trees
Above the roof-line.
Silence of wind
Drifting through sunlight.
Stinging chirps of birds.
Cat paws in the hall.
The wake-up call
Of hearts still turned
to night.
Dreams on water,
Receding tides.
Shadows from before
across one's eyes.
Sometimes, I feel Ohio
The bawling from a train’s horn
two blocks south
of our front porch.
It is where I stand
behind the screen,
folding arms against a chill,
watching the sky
above still-lit street lamps.
This is Ohio,
Marion in 1949;
the night becoming grey fingers
pulling-in dawn awakening;
patters downstairs
in that old house,
the crunch of Grandpa’s
huge Buick on wet gravel,
moving down the alley,
exhaust like steam
in the cold air,
remembrances laying down
like blankets, unmade.
Honest Man
On the eve of my departure,
I will leave
with this connection;
that lives remain entwined.
As I view myself
in a mirror,
I view me as you
once saw me;
levi jacket and cowboy boots.
"Billy the Kid, playing harmonica",
you said many times,
in different ways,
when, in fact,
I saw you as the same;
an outlaw who broke laws,
but never lied.
Saturday's Rain
A storm passed through yesterday,
in the late afternoon,
and I was not at home.
I'm sorry that I missed it.
My wife said the house sang
to the percussion of raindrops
onto its roof.
She opened the windows enough
so that the cats could watch.
Their tails flickered,
as water pecked every leaf and stone,
and a new world descended before them.
Geese
I craned my head upward,
watching two Canadian geese;
tawny-brown orbs,
husband and wife,
glide across the road
at fifty or so feet,
and coming down fast
to the park lake
on the other side.
I was putting twenty-two bucks in
at the cheapo gas station,
wondering hard as concrete
if I had enough time
for all of the things
that needed to be done today,
if I really had a few seconds
to stop for a medium coffee.
But, in that moment I was grateful
to watch these geese,
honking their excitement
as they found a place to rest,
to groom and socialize.
Solace warmed into me,
spread from the bridge of my nose,
to deep corners of my eyes
as they dropped from view,
behind the tall grass,
into the water’s cool.
The Grey Cat
Forty-some years.
Grief does not wear out.
It just incubates somewhere,
partial to the cusp
of a thought,
a wind chime at dawn.
You wake-up at 3 a.m.
to use the bathroom,
think of your grey cat
left with the drug addict ex-girlfriend
in 1971
because you were staying
with a friend,
sleeping on his couch,
and there was nothing
else you could do with it.
It stares into you,
still;
huge, yowling eyes
embedded in your chest,
behind the bridge of your nose
because in 1975
when you ran into
your drug addict ex-girlfriend
and she explained
in breathy, little cry-sobs,
that although she was now clean,
she wasn’t then,
left the porch door open,
nodded off in the kitchen
and the cat ran away
one midnight, deep in winter
because it was always,
always waiting, looking for you,
just you.
The Need to Dream
We blink, purse
our lips in thought.
We seem to always
look for a password,
for completion;
A moment to settle-up,
to attain a dream.
But, what then.
What becomes of a dream?
Where do the whispers go
that move us from room
to room, to other homes
and the cities
that sit
across rivers
shifting with sand,
that lean into
the pale yellow
of each new sun
rising.
Our Convenience of Deceit
Ed used to record himself
all night,
full of emergency,
threading one guitar track
through another,
racing
to a drum machine
that trembled, always,
one half-beat behind,
a half-beat ahead.
We knew he was slipping
past all of us again.
Everyone had seen this before;
manic freight-train glee,
cop chases,
screaming girlfriends calling 911.
We knew
he was slipping,
into mirrors that faced each other;
another war of ghosts.
Everyone had seen this before.
But then
it would come
the next morning.
His collected voice
would let us
sit back again;
the calm of restrained embarrassment,
sustained intellect
of one laughing at oneself,
giving-up nothing;
being no more
than a drunk pledge
with a lampshade
on his head.
Everyone, Everyone of us
had seen this before.
Christmas is Over
A few days ago
Christmas was over.
The tree has lost
its dominance
of the living room
and droops.
It is shedding needles
on the carpet,
which the cat eats,
causing him to throw-up
on my wife’s side
of the bed.
I swear
and clean it up
Yes, Christmas is over,
done to whatever;
Bills to be paid
in January.
The sighs and grimaces
have crept back
into the fold.
A carton of egg nog,
Half full,
has been pushed
to the rear,
bottom shelf,
of the fridge,
where it
will be discovered
in April.
Goodwill is in
Mid-morning traffic.
Peace has returned
To the stars.
~Glen Campbell is a recognized performer, singer and
guitarist. He is now battling Alzheimer's which is removing
him from his wonderful talents.
Glen at CMA TV Awards
Apprehension of what?
You didn’t know,
But when they worked your hits
Your mouth formed the lyrics
As if you should have known them.
You walked to the stage,
Translucent in a wispy dream.
People who knew you well
Were shadows humming
Behind your frayed eyes.
But like the consummate guitarist
You will always be,
You pulled a pick
From your top pocket
As they placed a flattop
Around your neck.
It was then the screen
Cut to commercial.
Mouse
I’ve had time today
to think about you….again.
I wonder how many times
that I will do as such
before I am
in your ultimate situation.
I can only trust
that the goodness and deep heart
which pushed-out from you,
through all of the crap
and frustration
that hung
like some pre-dictated legacy
around your neck,
will be granted to me as well.
Friendship could be God’s final gift
to a spirit plummeted
and ripped
by man’s unique indifference
unto himself.
It gathers together those who know
sin is a superficial leer;
lust-to-greed,
which pawns our soul,
is a shadow
that cannot leave earth,
and so,
you, my friend,
finally,
now pure from your fate…. settle-in.
I’ve had time today
to think about you again.
~This poem is actually a set of lyrics that I wrote for a CD project, in collaboration with my old band mate/guitarist Ed Solberg. He wrote the music. I wrote the lyrics. It was to be a collection of 14 songs and entitled 'Fullerton Blues'. It was never fully realized as he passed away on the eve of 2011. I have noted that Langston Hughes, an African-American poet
who was popular circa 1920's through the late 1950's, wrote many of his poems in this style, in an attempt to merge jazz and blues with written
verse. It intrigued me enough to do the same with this set of lyrics.
Dry River Blues
(for Ed Solberg)
…each verse to be phrased in 12-bar blues
I went down to the river
but the river was dry.
I went down to the river
but the river was dry.
I just a’ sit on back,
and watch the clouds go by.
I hear a train late at night.
She’s runnin’ heavy and low.
I hear a train late at night.
She’s runnin’ heavy and low.
I think about my good girl,
and all the places she go.
I sit in my room
like a man with no light.
I sit in my room
like a man with no light.
There’s a line through my head,
thick and black as the night.
I went down to the river
but the river was dry.
I went down to the river
but the river was dry.
I just a’ sit on back
and watch the clouds go by.
Dots and Circles
It will come to something;
that every moment.
To think of a minute
beginning as a dot
elongating, lining clockwise
into a circle,
and then,
maybe, even before that,
another dot begins.
All of our circles are turning.
We watch a sunrise,
spread over the white-trimmed roof
of the house next door.
That evening
she points to a wispy cloud
crawling across
the pear-yellow face
of a near-full moon,
and another dot begins
In the yard,
at night,
I see calm light
hover through our kitchen window,
fall onto the grass and flowerbeds,
lay against rectangled, checkered bark
of the camphor tree.
Dots and Circles,
stars and smoke,
as we look into the mirror
and think of the last time
we looked into it,
and then go to bed,
our whole bodies
grasping inward,
filling our grays-to-black-to-vortex
with the purr of cats settling next to us,
a brush-like rustle against the house,
the frozen, angel-hair whoosh,
sweeping downward,
from a 737
flying to Atlanta.
When Orson Wells Wrote a
Screenplay About Patriotism
Fundamental flag-waving.
It can be so Sunday,
some may say;
The glass purity of religion
sitting impatient
beneath the roll of thunder
The bars emptied.
Football games played to no one.
In a tiny seaboard town
men cleaned their rifles
and waited in unlit homes
for the sound of an enemy
that would mimic humans.
My Brother
I spoke to my brother this afternoon.
Mom is gone.
She no longer holds us
as one piece
He lives in Oklahoma
which I view as straight, two-lane roads
dissolving into the face of the sun,
which I view as flat, transient dust
gathering against your sweat,
which I view as rampant
sleet-winds of pure ice
that freeze rattlesnakes
to be brittle as garden hoses left out,
that force people to stare
as if they are blind.
Once a year
my brother drives here
to visit, but now
Mom is gone.
We are no longer together,
not in that way,
and there is full reality
of New Mexico
and Arizona,
the long haul into the anti-prize
of Barstow,
a town that simmers into the earth,
that has given-up longing
to be more than a slab on the desert floor.
This is what lies between us;
pages leafing outward
to opposite sides
after Mom’s dementia
has folded in on her.
Waking Up
By Robert Lesher
I start each day with this platform;
one, two
and three.
This is blessed and defined;
slight variations, but nonetheless
within repetition;
Face washed, coffee on,
classical station tuned in;
piano sonatas
drifting parallels
to my psyche.
Really;
There has to be this sort of thing;
A to B to C. You know,
before the rest of the alphabet
falls off its straight line
above the chalk board.
Let it be;
a settled run of minutes,
before coughs and sneezes,
fracture the rhythm
into a woodpile of half-completions,
muttered ideas
lost without paper,
into days becoming
cantankerous pantomimes
against the sun.
Sometimes I Yell at the Cat
Sometimes, I yell at the cat.
I have to.
He’s on the kitchen counter
and I know the neighbors can hear me.
It makes me feel like a creep
because the ex-hippy neighbors are thinking,
and they don’t know he’s been on the counter,
and he shouldn’t be,
that I’m probably
the sort of guy who sits in the car
while his wife is in the market,
that I, most likely, am
some living-room, flat-minded tyrant
who obsesses the possibility
that next football season
might be cancelled
because of a labor dispute,
and I’ll never see the Broncos
redeem themselves.
So now they are thinking,
as if they are working up a sweat,
that, yes, I am a creep,
that I’m insensitive towards animals,
that I’d kick a dog if I had one.
I want to yell to them
that I like the cat,
that I tickle his little pink tummy
and goo over him
like some nanny
when he lies on his back,
blocking the hallway
at three in the morning
as I try to make it to the bathroom.
But, sometimes I yell at the cat.
I have to.
The Green Boat
Did you come from the copper-green boat
that sways, unconcerned,
outside the plate glass,
in Newport Bay,
surrounded by satin white bows,
sterns with fun-money names?
I’ve decided
to believe you have.
Your face is madrigal,
the way young women
should age;
lines placed within roman curvatures,
as if drops of milk
have formed them.
It is like I would dream it to be,
if I dreamed of you.
A man sits beside you.
His chair seems lower.
He slouches in it.
His plate is half-finished
and pushed aside.
He is thinking about work.
He is wishing tomorrow
was another Monday
back in Glendale.
His nerves collect and short-circuit
behind his eyes
while you drink a fluted glass
of orange juice,
softly flicking your tongue
against your light rose lips.
James Bay: Winter of 1970
Down Niagara Street it goes,
the Outer Wharf bus vibrating
like some ancient spaceship,
interior lights dimming, revving
with each change of gear.
Faded Chevys, pushing tired headlights,
prowl back in from work
Overhead,
the inverted dome of winter,
hangs, steeped in wire chills,
edgy, little fingertips
of dry-cold, cut crystal
biffing the skin.
There are leaves overlaid,
wet and scoured black,
plastered into the V’s of gutters.
This clapboard neighborhood,
it’s harbored odor of wet wood,
dowager whites and grey,
deep into the smell of heating oil,
is perpetual with winter.
In one’s-two’s-three’s
house lamps grow;
moon-yellow insulations
of old electricity
raising against windows.
It is near-on 5 p.m.,
a second storm coming,
mashing, whirling from the ocean,
clouds going automatic,
their time-lapsing swirls
breathing, brimming upward
in Immelmann turns,
locking from horizon to horizon.
At the bus stop,
wet gravel crunches,
pops upward
from beneath my shoes.
I can feel this quiet grace,
of cold mist receding
into my hair,
gathered against
my shivered face,
as my thoughts become warmer
with slow and slower passages,
the misconceptions of regret
turned to longings,
another chance
for faces and tones
absorbed by earth,
spinning in the sky.
ARRIVING ON THE EVE
Landing here;
To be dipping
into someone’s
final communion;
A still photo
beginning to move
only because
I am new, fresh
and unexpected.
I am here
only to be here.
But, I feel
a promise,
somebody else’s shadow
assuming,
over a tipped glass
of red wine,
that I could be here
to turn a stone,
or raise hallelujahs
of resolution and form,
that I have arrived
to lift heat
so high into the sky
that cool rivers
may run again.
GARY THE BASS PLAYER
You had no encumbering angst.
It had come and gone
in another life.
Your hair was sun-white.
Your skin was so fair
that you seemed to hover within it.
Your strength wasn’t there
in that Vox bass. Nah.
Nor was it when you
went anti-war at Berkley
and got riot-gassed.
At the foot of Mt. Shasta,
you just leaned back and looked upwards,
through the snow flurries.
It was there your feet became sandals,
honed by Buddha.
PORT ALBERNI
A town defused,
sitting low in winter.
The bus system sloshes
past catalog storefronts
and a bright formica café.
It is where young girls sit,
eat chips with gravy,
drink cokes
and plot their escapes to Vancouver.
Thirty-some years later,
Ian will move here.
It is his last resort.
He gets a dog,
walks among the locals.
At night he reads Keats and Steinbeck,
and talks to me on the phone.
He tells me that his
teeth are falling to pieces,
that he cries sometimes
over plain and lonely dinners.
When he thinks of his wife and son,
he steps outside
and it all rises
from his chest and eyes,
tumbling up the green slopes,
that frame the inlet
once full of fresh-cut lumber,
still and pontooned.
Graphics Courtesy of ©Birgitta
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