Julie Robinson's Poems


1990's
Connect

Wind blown sunlight
speaks of emptiness
between the leaves,
worry... hurry..,
fill not the void
where are you?
Let us meet
here... now..,
between gusts of wind,
one leaf falling,
stillness, warmth,
dancing light in your
smile.


The Dance
Let’s join in the dance
on a single point of light
spinning perfect balance

Make a distinction...
separation alienation
how to reconcile
perceptions of pain when
making distinctions we
create the other


Restless mind
of my highest and lowest moments
by affirmation
I stand exalted.
In quiet mind
no name
no effort.
Closer still
the moment stands eternal.

1980's
The Seagul
While Resting on the Beach
I felt my death
flesh slowly being consumed
in time...the cloak and catcher
of illusions which hold me to this plane.

I am comforted by the Ocean's
percieved indifference
for such dreams
as I might star in.

The waves broke upon the rocks and we ate our lunch.
A seagull hung suspended in the air overhead.
Later we walked through the forest.
Sunlight filtered through leafy branches: a bird sang
somewhere in the forest...
Is there anything more than the silence, sunlight
and a seagull hoping for a share of the bread?


Projection
I have allowed you
into my deepest self
(or did you come first un-beckoned?)
I can never hide from you
yet I always seek to convince you
of my worth
knowing all convincing is a lie
somehow your being there guides me gently toward the only truth
the only worth
I could ever have.

But then in a moment of fantasy
you become my lover in a dream
more real than life
in a blur of lust
attempting to fuck right past the lie
into a blinding acknowledgement of our Oneness.

I try to hide and you are always there
and my dance of illusion seems frivolous before you
and yet you seem never to judge
Is this then the ultimate bondage
where my ego has nowhere to hide
my tension fine and taut ties me to this frame
where I dissect the intricate mask I call me.
I have captured you and taken you
into the eye of creation
(or did you take me?)
floating together in an eternal moment where
soft waves travel out to the edge of creation
warping the field of ordinary reality
Do you know I can see that part of you that resides there
is that why I find myself joining you there
and is this why you have become
(unknowingly)
my guide, my witness, my very Self.


Perfection
In pursuit of a flawless self image
I am always seeking to convince you
of myself.
And yet realizing this is the
ultimate act of deception
I turn about trying to shock you
and shatter the icon I created.
There is no where to run and no
act worthy enough except to just
be/yes/neither coming or going
and you/me and the universe
do absolutely nothing.
Why then do I attempt always
the perfect lie?


Objective Findings
Why when I read your letters
of dates and times of activities
of meetings attended
and family visited,
of food eaten...lovely though
it was; of drives taken
in the countryside
and flowers seen along the way
The daily temperature fluctuations
precipitation and wind chill factors...

I feel empty still and want
somehow to be touched.
My childhood was lost amongst the
objective findings of your mind
My feelings hurt me in their
exquisiteness as well as their pain.
I yearned for some acknowledgement
that life consisted of something
more than schedules kept and achievements met
and a religion that one found
in books. The questions asked
were given answers too simple
which made the terror grow.

I just would like sometime
that among the objective findings
you could admit your pain...or your fear;
that you would admit your vulnerability:
at some level we all are...
then maybe I could let go a little of
mine...and then perhaps some
balance could be achieved.


Apology
My body does not wait for me today
my heart leaping out
slips away from me
I find you now an object of my longing and
All the constructs of thinking and loftiest ambitions of
enlightenment only a screen
now spinning
the distance between us; it widens, and
I dive ever deeper into the dream.

1970's
For Van Morrison

salt the dinner with my tears.
had the feeling no one cares
saw you today and you began to play
a tune that made me feel again.
somehow music does what no words can
made the tears come again
made them flow and
salt the dinner one more time.
I stood there stirring
listening to you songs
reaching in and touching
touching...make me feel again
and salt the dinner with my tears.
Thank you for your gift of song.


The Mask

to touch your body
only the cloak
which holds your soul...perhaps to
read and feel your energy flowing out
to mine
flowing as bright colored lights
into spaces within and without
our energies come
and meet...feeling one another
with a mask of gestures
embraces and words we seek to satisfy the physical...while our
energies play, embrace, ask,
receive and dance the dance
of life celebrating our time together singled out
for this brief moment in time
we celebrate our uniqueness
and our souls embrace trying to remember
the Wholeness of ALL.


Children

Small feet tumbling down the stairs
tousled morning hair and wondering eyes
a giggle and a hug returned for same
eyes dancing as breakfast cooks and a
dream dreamt last night is told.
Trusting they look on waiting
to be fed the love that will help them grow.
They ask in a multitude of ways:
a look, shared treasures, a demand, a tease, a crises, a fear:
listen carefully.
If they aren’t sharing love then they are trying to find it again.


Tea and Old Letters
your eyes look to me
and I feel you there but
can you
really see me
as I turn into three and
then merge
to form a cloud
that is used for
someone’s excuse
not to go to the beach
and then a friend
invites me over for tea
and old letters
and I try to
decide what I’m doing
there when
the world is ending
and my voice
is no longer mine.


Searching

Reaching out with
tactile fingers
hoping to find the hand
that will set me free
always finding only mine...
loneliness becomes my shroud
as I begin once again
the molecular dance
of man in search of
Himself.


The Laundromat Affair

I stand here
feeling your energy
awakening
something within me
and I merge with your past
or is it mine too....
subconscious memories
come forth
in shapes of green grassy hills
gently bathed in
sea mist
and smells and bells
from some hidden
place of thatched roofs and wagons
of Yeats and Joyce.
and then there are the
conscious memories
the dreams of
childhood yet to be fulfilled
somewhere out West
maybe in the
sharing of
two hours a week in
the Laundromat
if even that!


For Paul O.

how good it is to meet you
again through the sound
of your laughter
through the lines of your poems
the you that is I
to know and feel you as a brother
to feel the common knowledge
that we are all travelers
to the same place.


Variations on a theme of OM
sound one note
how long
can you embrace it
without having to embellish it
can’t you relish it?


Cul de sac

Somewhere there is
a beginning
somewhere an end
and where the two meet
is where I feel I should be.

It takes a thin-sunned day
with a cool persistent wind
to turn my mind from yesterday
to where? I can’t find
tomorrow and I’m forced to look for today
where / here / now / what?
no answers come and
Time stands indifferent
as I double back on myself.

1960's
Grain ripens in
amber earth valleys...
and a moon full of the year’s gifts
rides the night sky proudly
courting earth and man into the
coming winter.


Duality
energy moving into focus
plays patterns in my brain
and the pain can be felt
to fade as ecstasy moves forward
sharpening reality
to a fine point
I think of moments
and ride them
to the end
ecstasy is fleeting
but then so is pain.


Smoke

Smoke spins upward
in forms of now
I caught for a moment
in space asking why
I reach out to know
and find emptiness
smoke inhaled
then expelled
I hoping to see why
and then...
Love finds its way to my heart
and for a moment, I know.
then smoke spins upward again
asking...why.


A Case of Mistaken Identity

I felt the coming storms
from the first blinding moment
and was told I had not wanted to come into
this time
but a force carried me unwilling
kicking and screaming
into the cold dry air
and strange faces looked on
with great expectations.

I felt I could not play the part
or that the part had been miscast
but I found a part somewhere deep
inside dreams only dared at night
I found them cold and black and locked
tight in fear and guilt
and one by one I played them out
until I felt redeemed.

And so once released
from a burden I did not understand
I took my first real breath
and listened for the echoes
of those dying expectations;
I found they held a quiet beauty
and in them threads
of the very fabric from which God
fashioned me.


Down Day

Their insanity reaches out
asking questions
I stand mute and shrugging
no answer comes for the One answer
is not the answer we want to hear.

The world is tired.
Loneliness. Great empty
loneliness, gaping wondrous
Illusion of a Grand Plan
That failed.


Conflict
Orange streaks my mind
chords inharmonious
tear at my ears
some pressures disappears
but new ones mount up.

SING to the higher self and
LISTEN
to the silence within.


Impermanence
My image caught in a moment
of sunlight
flickering ... then gone
leaving the image
of my image
upon the eye
then
reshaping in the coming night
reforming in the twinkling stars
bursting with a shooting star
but
never touching earth.
Suspended briefly in the sky of time
waiting to be caught again


Hoping to Harvest

Bursting with ripeness
In the late seasons
I caught prisoner
by my own hand
struggle to break free
and once again
go in search with the winds
seeking a fallow time
Hoping to harvest
and yet
Upon the time of harvest
again I strain against the chains of time
scattering the grain
And then wonder why
there is no food
in winter.


Sensitivity
Dark soft spongy me
Your words cut through
like screeching
Ice knives
The direction of projection
is confused and fused
Please help amend
so that I can mend.


Ocean tides flow
silently through my veins
pulling me down
to cool depths of
Dark Sea where starfish
and coral create in
a measure of Eternity.


Spider Web

Spun webs form angles
Upon which I turn.
Grasping towards sunlight,
I climb upon the Night Spider’s path,
To feel the warmth drawn out
On a single thread of silk.


Of Things Dissolving

In this time of need
I find moments
and holding on I feel
them dissolve never to come again
in the forms of now
but I, knowing,
go on in search
of things dissolving
yet lasting
as the soul is lasting
feasting upon them
in this day so bright
my need dissolving
for this moment
I sleep softly
knowing my soul will never
die in the bleak fields of famine.


Time stands still
in a brief moment of ecstasy
captured in the mind’s eye
in forms of things remembered,
locked forever in the veins of life,
felt only once in the heart,
but there waiting to be relived
as time moves on
gathering moments of love.
then, cooled by the soft embrace of sleep,
Love is caught forever in the tape
of things remembered.


A soul is a priceless thing
without it, no joy life can bring
it supplies vitality
and gives one nobility
it makes life worth the living
and allows one pleasure in giving
It makes sorrow easy to bear
and happiness easy to share.


A Little Ditty
The winter is fading
and field growing green
the mouse is out from hiding
the hare a multiplying
can you think when you last heard
the birds sing so sweet
on the glorious occasion
of winter’s retreat?


Kittens play about the house
Always searching for a mouse
mother cat, her watchful eye
always guarding her small fry
lest a mouse bigger than they
carry them off far away.


I feel words within my heart
and words in dark corners of my brain
they strain at the womb of the subconscious
to come into the realm of the conscious
I feel them straining to break free
and spill out on paper.
Yet, if I were to take them too soon,
they would be still-born
and mean nothing to you or me.