Art: Landscape in Orange Tones by John Timothy Robinson
The Predicament of Breathlessness, II
Since you’ve been gone,
I’ve been vaping a void
trying to acclimate with-
out your skin and breath.
The table is bare no matter
what’s on its surface, and
the dogs seem sad on Friday
when you don’t show up at 5.
The wine is flat and the olives
bore me; the air is stale and
the furniture doesn’t sit right.
It’s hard to breathe again.
In 7 years or so I might be able
to look back and say it worked,
but I might be dead by then
and would have missed being
with the only one I know who
can boldly say that she loves me.
The Trouble with Living with a Morning Person
I am having trouble getting out of bed
before you have your second cup of
Eight-O’Clock. Too late for a decent
conversation. I am having trouble forming
the “a” in my first word; you have almost
completed a mini-essay. There are drops
of pee on the bathroom floor and my
Kleenex didn’t make it into the garbage
receptacle. And there you are, frying up
eggs and making toast and talking way
too fast for comprehension. Holy Jesus,
man, slow down. Parlez lentement. Give
me a reason to live. The children next
door are waiting on the school bus in the
dark and they should be screaming the
way kids always are, but I can’t hear them
for you, chatting about things I can’t recall,
rattling pots and pans, sticking them back
into their proper places. Let me sit in peace,
please, and have my first cup of coffee, and
relearn how to form words and sentences
so I can get a word in edgewise. Please.
About the author:
John Dorroh may have taught secondary science for a couple of decades; whether he did is still being discussed. His poetry has appeared in about 75 journals, including Dime Show Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Red Dirt Forum, Dead Mule Society, and Tuck.
In the artist’s words:
John Timothy Robinson is a mainstream citizen and minored in Studio Art: Printmaking in college. John is also a twelve-year educator in Mason County, WV. He is a published poet with 150 literary works appearing in 102 journals and websites since August 2016 in the United States, Canada, India and the United Kingdom. In Printmaking, he has published eighty-four print and photographic images, though his primary medium is Monotype and Monoprint process with interest in collagraph, lithography and etching.
Recent work; Cover
“Rock Layers” first appeared in North American Review for 2019.
“Rise,” “Leaf Image III” and “Golden Bridge” (red hill, purple sky) were first published in Castabout Art and Literature for 2019.
“The Philosopher’s Stone” first appeared in Curating Alexandria for 2019.
“Two Faces; Faded Green II” was first published in post card format for Red Flag Poetry, November 2019.
“Leaf Image” for Right Hand Pointing issue 135 November 2019.
Essays on Printmaking;
“An Aesthetic for Printmaking” appeared at Empty Mirror in 2018.
Contact: jtrobinson@k12.wv.us