January 7, 2010

And Sanity Scurried!                                                                                                                                                                    

I was watching a segment of Francis Ford Cappola's Vietnam War movie, Apocalypse Now, two nights ago and it reminded me once more of the similarities between an LSD trip and being a serviceman in the
Vietnam War during the late 1960's.  Both are dreams dreamt awake; a life seasoned with flashbacks, hallucinations, sleeplessness, light shows, too long, too short, brownouts, blackouts, purple water, buffalos stampeding through mirrors and neon-lights,  the morning's red glare more than a line lifted from the American National Anthem  . . .

One minute I'm eating breakfast in the tin roofed chow hall  on the Navy side of Dong tam, yakking away between gulps, during gulps, downing helpings of  omelets with real eggs, real meat, when I hear the all too familiar whistle of an incoming rocket, the chow hall roof pelted with shrapnel, then another whistle, and another . . .    "It's wonderful to be here, it's certainly a thrill.  You're such a lovely audience, we'd like to take you home with us . . . " I belt out from under the table we took cover under, making an adrenaline dash with three shipmates to our duty stations, rockets falling in front of us, behind us . . . "I don't really want to stop the show, but I thought you might like to know, that the singer's going to sing a song and he wants you all to sing along . . ."


An officer in the bunker outside the chow hall orders us to seek shelter in the bunker, calls us crazy sonabitches. We ignore him, instinct tells us to report to our duty stations on the top secret  . . . our lucky talisman, but not today, a rocket hits the pontoons, another tears a whole into the . . . 's entrance . . . rockets behind us, nowhere to go but into the dragon's mouth . . . running past the bloodied bodies of two shipmates, the stench of metal, the stench of flesh . . ."They've been going in and out of style,but they're guaranteed to raise a smile . . . "

Ordered pandemonium, shocked faces, no time to think, to remember, instinct doing what it does when during times like this . . .  I don my flack jacket, helmet, M-16 (as if it can stop incoming rockets and mortars), running aft to my duty station . . . "General Quarters.  General Quarters.  All hands man their battle stations!"  Hyper-alert, not thinking, a  cleared headed buddha staring into a world that doesn't exist, is, or isn't.  A dream?  Hallucination?  Drowning out the dragon's roar; automatic ammo whizzing past me like gnats . . . no enemy to see, only sounds, a thousand Godzillas stomping through the muddy hole we call a bay bordering a base that used to be a rice field, the whispers of elders, soft ice cream cones without the ice cream, the world as we know it changed, altered, a section of Salvadore Dali's Hallucinogenic Toreador ?  A genesis taking place when least expected . . . thoughts other than chit chat" and omelets . . . "We hope you will enjoy the show . . . Sit back and let the evening go. "                                

                                        
This is just a glimpse into the hell only a Vietnam Veteran experiences . . . and remembers;  an experience that changes a 19 year old forever.  I counted the days until I went home, but  . . . what I came home to . . .  had changed. I went from one battlefield to another.

Welcome to The Wonderland Amusement Park, the subconscious and conscious diary of Robert D. Wilson, using haiku, senryu, haiga, and tanka as his means of expression.  Enter at your own risk.  And if you dare, become a member.  Who knows, one day I'll send you a news letter.

*The lyrics in parenthesis are excerpted from Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club by the Beatles.

the smell of a 

carabao eating shade . . .

human candles 

swallowed by a

hundred dragons

robert d. wilson

©2009

she goes through

the moves to sustain

the charade

she thinks i've swallowed . . .

the actress's walk

stolen fruit . . .

anything to buy

a dream!

i sowed seed

n the moonlit fields of

too much loam . . .

tomorrow, a sprout,

suckling sunlight

stepping

through a brother's blood . . .

and for what?

even clouds

can't erase the ah

of my day . . .

dawn's breath fertilized

with a farmer's smile

blossoms . . .

hearing them

smile

she told me she

liked me, then folded me

into a

paper airplane and

flew down the hall

5 days in

january . . .

dogs in heat!

yesterday

she learned she was

in heat . . .

oddly hungry,

horny as hell!

the dance of

ducks on empty lines . . .

bathing summer

the smell of a

carabao eating shade . . .

human candles

swallowed by a

hundred dragons

moist eyes . . .

like the fog straddling

lake taal*

*pronounced ta-all . . . a volcano in the middle of a large lake

that once was connected to the sea.

we lost all

sense of time, swimming in

our own worlds . . .

jack-in-the -boxes

using the same key

feeling paints

a rainbow in her loins . . .

morning doves

that light brown

color of the onion field . . .

fatigued, she

walks slowly around

the muddy pond

buds sip

sunlight in palms . . .

spreading song

more tender than

before, her breasts, point

to autumn . . .

and the slowness

of falling leaves

the smile i've

saved for twilight dawn . . .

not a dream?

robert d. wilson

©2009

January 3, 2010

WECOME TO WONDERLAND!

winter night . . . 

at the fast food place

waiting for

snails to inch past

what's left of dinner

robert d. wilson

©2009

Welcome to the year of the Tiger, whatever that means. I was born in the year of the Ox. I didn't win the lottery, my house didn't burn down . . . just the usual good and bad days with the bad, of course, more memorable than the good, because hell, it hurts.  We've all had good and bad years. During my year and this year, I'm adjusting to a new marriage, learning to love myself ( a prerequisite to loving others), which is a hard to do when you were abused as a child, one of the shortest kids in 6th grade which meant playing right field (if you play at all), and last up to bat (which pissed me off ). In Little League I was the league's premier base stealer and one of the top second basemen.  There's a pecking order from grade school through high school. And look around, it follows us into adulthood.  The rich, good looking kids, who were good at sports or, if a girl, pretty, well endowed, and again, monied.  This was the group who played God and defined the term, norm. I dislike this group.  A few were respectful, but most  of them looked down on those whom they considered inferior.  And the campus thought of them as gods who defined the norm?  And where are these gods today? Some are in prison, others holding down normal jobs, a few are successful, and those who inherited the family business.  Good looks counts for little these days. Was Bill Gates a member of the in-crowd when he was a teenager?  Opra?  Larry King?  


The in-crowd today are the famous, ugly or beautiful, who have lots of the almighty dollar. I could be the ugliest man on earth BUT if I have lots of money and fame, beautiful women will come out of the woodwork wanting a part of me . . . (society's prostitutes).  I lose my wealth and fame, they scatter.  In your local community, who serves on the school board, the city council, and other boards?  Those with the bucks.  


People in America worship wealth.  They do in all countries.  In the Philippines, I can have a class A looking 18 year old girlfriend just because I'm a Kano (an American). They'll go to bed with me in an instant, if I tell them I want them.  Filipinas in the Philippines where I live, worship white men.  To them, they are rich, light skinned, and a ticket to the good life. 


The Wonderland Amusement Park is everywhere, folks.  We have branches in every country, every geographical locale, a world where anything goes. madness reigns, all is constant, what is, isn't; what isn't is or can be . . . an amusement park of the mind.  The one your visiting here is mine. And few in the egotistical poetry world, have the guts to allow others to visit their Wonderland.  We all have to look good, right? Make a good impression, follow the norm, follow the dictates of the rich and famous, locally or otherwise.  And the ones we like best are mirrors.


Welcome to Robert D. Wilson's Wonderland Amusement Park.  Enter if you dare, and when you come out, and the mirror you saw discomforted you, you will criticize the hell out of this park, regardless of the quality of poetry or haiga on its cranial walls.  The norm? You tell me and WHY!?!

when the red 

tide ebbs, her blood

thickens . . .  

eating green mango

with bagaong

the phone rings

and she's wide awake . . .

winter's end

a spoiled one,

the high blooded girl

before me . . . 

a field of wheat grass

devoured by locusts

interesting . . .

the bursting of bulbs

in spring

careful, your

words, like a spear,

push into

my loins deeply . . . 

silent bamboo

if only

to be a bulb,

sipping sun

every day, 

i see the desire

to stretch out 

beyond the canvas

others paint for you

i comb your

tresses with my breath . . .

spring blossoms

imagine 

for a moment, my

dreams and yours

in a nara wood boat

on heaven's river

a new year . . .

we'll follow the tiger

together

forget the

what and if, questions

formed in 

captions above your head . . .

and kiss me . . . gently

together ,

we unbutton the stars . . .

one by one

i fell asleep

this afternoon, composing

poetry

you willed me to write . . .

seven pieces of fruit

in dreams 

i shouldn't dream . . .

eyes that paint 

i cast 

my line into a

school of 

fish playing hooky . . .

laughing water

stars . . . 

paddle tonight down

heaven's river 

she melted 

when she heard him 

sing, ready 

to spend a week. . .

a job, she said, a job

he'll sing 

inside her blossom

. . . shuddering petals

will she play

the same role with

me after 

spending a week

with an actor?

tall flames . . .

goes wonder woman play

with matches?

naive?

letting her fuck 

man after 

man in herman 

hesse's steppenwolf?

will dragon

eat my brain again?

late winter

this park . . .  

i shake my fears 

in a can

letting them fall

in a crap game

will spring mock

me, knowing our 

door's locked?

why do i

let why slither

inside me . . .

a masochist

drawing water?

new year's eve . . . 

a dragon strolling

through rice fields

she steps out

of the magazine

knowing she

looks hot, happy so

many men desire her

crisp night . . . 

i bounce with the moon

between stars

i can't tell her

how i feel or shake my

fists at God . . . 

the anger in me

trembling with fear

tomorrow, 

snow will dust my

daughter's hair

she chooses

me over God . . . 

becomes a

whore to give us the 

child i can't give her

the day nears 

when i'll hang alone

on bare limbs

it's just a

job she tells herself

at dawn . . . 

an art deco building

without tenants

if we were

lovers, would spring

come sooner?

winter night . . . 

at the fast food place

waiting for

snails to inch past

what's left of dinner

driving in

and out of dreams . . .

jack fruit moon!

will snail

take me into her

shell tonight . . . 

silent voices dance

inside the mind?

crazy man!

your concept of sex 

is dog shit!

why won't I

let another pole my

nara wood raft

past the stars into

tall grass dreams?

to think i

feared you, darkness . . . 

sanctuary!

what will she

do at night, when her doll

stops speaking . . .

her baby crawling

across christmas lights?

running trees . . . 

the stench of shanties

spreading

today,

tomorrow, the Bobster

turns seven . . . 

my arms stretched unnoticed

across the ocean

even in 

sleep, makiling waters

the earth

for now, 

the wetness of what 

to come when 

the moon must leave like

a vampire at dawn

robert d. wilson

©2009

Happy New Year From The Wilson Family

Make a Smilebox greeting

December 28, 2009

A man who works for me here in the Philippines is the proud father of his fourth child; the first from the only woman he'd married. They had their baby at home, a four foot high hovel without electricity, with the help of a mid-wife they couldn't afford. . . The baby, an 8 pound boy, his mother, less than five feet tall with the dark skin of a girl who's no stranger to the sun. . .  I've never been to their house; our worker too embarrassed for me to see it.  Others in the past have refused to show me where they live as well. They feel inferior, unequal to to those who have more. 


Was Christ a rich man wearing a white porcelain mask, clothed in satin robes, chauffeured in a a shiny black stretch limo, with a crowd of worshippers in tow carrying lit candles?  Was Buddha always a stone statue who never ate the food laid at his feet in cold, dark temples, during a war we had no business being in,  when those dressed in ochre, having shaved heads, walked between good and evil, at the dragon's beckoning,  showering the rice paddies with omens that are and are not?  Did Allah come out of a cave to bring the world to its knees, having bridged the chasm between the "and" of are and  are not followed by minions of demons carrying unlit candles, or . . . did he, instead, create a bridge between good and evil,  tossing the "and" of are and are not into the chasm below, the sky raining jasmine petals?




I am, you are . . . always changing . . . am and are, skipping stones across the stillness of a lake made of dreams, ancestors dreamt when the world was a dream passed on to the are and are not dancing between stars.


i am, you 
are the chasm we
jump into
when the trees no
longer whisper




robert d. wilson
©2009

the glint in

your eyes looking

for the man

to give you our baby

in a hayless manger

there baby, a

boy born in a puddle

candle light

you think

i don't know your 

thoughts . . . 

herons sinking

into thick silt

inside the

afterbirth, a

money tree

your words . . .

a poorly made 

paper crane

unable to see 

its way through lies

money tree . . .

rotting roots can't stop 

dawn's breasts

the sun's risen!

bathe us too, in the same

magic that bore

you a basket of 

fruit after christmas!

even an

afterbirth can be

used again

the blood

from your new born,

fodder for

another woman's dreams . . .

racing against stars!

dawn coolness . . . 

your breath circles 

stone breasts

the secrets

of your womb sleep too

in stone beds . . . 

longing for clouds 

pushed by warm air

farm girl . . .

the warm sun softens

your heart

madness lurks

in the questions you

can't answer . . .

bubbles popping up

in stagnant water

only walls 

won't milk me of my

last winter

eye shadow

and a permanent

will paint you

into the canvas

you thought you weren't

why does spring

beckon when i don't

text you?

birth brother,

we too fight closets . . .

wrestle with

lies in the guise of

paper dragons

be you, be

the breathe that takes away

our winter

i am, you 

are the chasm we

jump into

when the trees no

longer whisper

here, winter

is a candle, your

spirit's flame

robert d. wilson

©2009