Bruce Robinson

THE UNINVITED

Tonight the same old story,
that lapse of water that's

always there, the waves that offhand
feel you up, you're an upland

intruder, it's a half-cocked sea,
there are words we have to fight for,

or do without.
They rub each other out,

or tell their separate story,
the leaden slowness

of the words' arrival,
dead letters, watermarks,

dark growths, palimpsests.
They come from difficult places,

they're babbles of shades on a screen.
A cheek, her cheek, twitches beneath

the skin in the room
without a bath. They have

skin in the room. A page
turns. Bones frame a chin.


Bruce's YouTube video reading of "The Uninvited":



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Bruce confesses: "This poem began with having watched some Bogart film, years ago, something about "Fleming," and, more recently, winnowing through old papers, trying to shred whatever I could, came upon something that was almost a poem and felt as though it could be turned into one. Sort of a cold case. It's not always clear whodunnit."

Recent work by BRUCE ROBINSON appears or is forthcoming in Pangyrus, Maintenant, Rattle, Spoon River Poetry Review, Main Street Rag, Evening Street Review, and Seventh Quarry. He last appeared in The Five-Two at the tail end of 2019.