Robert Plath

TO MY 5-YEAR-OLD SELF AS I APPROACH 55

today i go thru an old door
behind my eyes
arriving back
beneath that terrible roof
& i pick you up
& we slip away
from the monster
who doesn’t notice
as he slumps
watches boxing on tv
in the den
we cross splintered
door jambs
before his fists
begin itching
& drive until we reach
a bright field
we get out
& walk
i pause to pick
a bouquet of violets
my hands touching yr hands
in a benevolent exchange
the same hands
you smile
pressing blue petals
to yr heart
like defibrillator paddles
beneath june sun


Gerald So's YouTube reading of "to my 5-year-old self..."


Rob confesses nothing.

ROB PLATH has been prolific in the underground lit. scene since 1995. His most recent poetry collections are Walking Across The Shards Of My Soul, 2021 and Batter the Keyboard Like A Raptor Is Behind Your Back, 2022. A long awaited full-length collection is due out in 2025.

Robert Plath

HIDEOUT

as a boy i remember
in winter
on long car rides home
after visiting aunts & uncles
it’d be dark
& i’d stretch across the backseat
first secretly cracking the window
curling up in the heat
the scent of cold starry air
& burning wood from fireplaces
sneaking in around me
imagining i was running away
hiding in back of a strange
old drafty truck
heading to some faraway place
no aunts or uncles
no mother or father
no brother or sister
just an abandoned hut
on a mountain top
where there was no more screaming
or things smashing against walls
or knuckles
or people alone in rooms weeping, etc.
trees would be my friends
& i’d braille pinecones
& talk to the wind
& sit in the company of ferns
& wink back to fireflies, etc.
but then my father would scream
roll that window up
you’re letting the goddamn heat out
waking me from
my happy tinroof hideout
orphan nighttime daydreams


Gerald So's YouTube reading of "hideot"


Rob confesses nothing.

ROB PLATH has been prolific in the underground lit. scene since 1995. His most recent poetry collections are Walking Across The Shards Of My Soul, 2021 and Batter the Keyboard Like A Raptor Is Behind Your Back, 2022. A long awaited full-length collection is due out in 2025.

2020 Best of the Net Nominees

Every poem I publish at The Five-Two is a favorite of mine, so in past years I've allowed readers to vote on three of my six submissions for Sundress Publications' Best of the Net anthology.

With the COVID-19 outbreak this year and other business, I had no time to open the voting, but at yesterday's deadline, I submitted the following.

In the order they debuted during Best of the Net's July 1, 2019–June 30, 2020 eligibility period:

• "Intruders at Akumal" by Clarinda Harriss
• "Just Shoot 'Em" by Faye Turner-Johnson
• "The Ogre's Wife" by Robert Plath
• "Prom Queen" by Tom Barlow
• "Autobiography of Ursula" by Margot Douaihy
• "CA" by Ron Riekki

Thanks and good luck to all.

Robert Plath

THE OGRE'S WIFE

my mother
always called
for my father
when a mouse
still squeaking
was stuck
to a glue paper
trap beneath
the kitchen sink
& she’d turn
her back & say,
i can’t watch
as he balled up
the amber trap
mouse & all
squeezing it
in his big meaty
fist & growling,
another no good
fucking pest
& tossed it
in the garbage
as we sat hiding
in our cold cells
on busted box
springs


Gerald So reads "The Ogre's Wife":



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Rob confesses: "This poem was inspired by these sticky traps my father set for mice. He really did crush them and throw them out while they were alive. Once when he wasn’t around I heard one under the sink squeaking and it was stuck, so i took scissors and cut around his feet. After an hour he was free and ran away with these tiny shoes on. And of course I relate to the mice while growing up in that house."

ROBERT PLATH is a 50-year-old poet from New York. He has over a dozen books out. He is most known for his collection A Bellyful of Anarchy (Epic Rites Press). He lives alone with his cat and stays out of trouble. See more of his work at www.robplath.com.

Robert Plath

MURDER INC.

when john gotti's
12 year old son
got hit by a car
& killed
while riding his
moped in front of
his house
the neighbor
who was responsible
for striking the boy
disappeared

years later
in a book about gotti
it says that
to purge his
anger & grief over
the death of his son
gotti had men
kidnap the man
bring him to
a warehouse where
john gotti himself
cut the man
in three
with a chainsaw

i've tried this
method of catharsis
in my poems
i've tied my father
up to the page
& sawed him into pieces
with serrated sentences
but unlike
the man who
was cut in three
my father keeps
coming back to life
to run me over


Gerald So reads "Murder Inc.":



Subscribe to Channel 52 for first view of new videos.


Rob confesses: "My father was the inspiration for this poem in two ways. He would tell stories about his days as a bookie and collector for the mob in Brooklyn. I'd overhear these disturbing tales and when I was a little older the stories it led me to read a book about John Gotti. And unfortunately, the second way he inspired this poem was the way he treated his family, especially his children."

ROBERT PLATH is a 46-year-old poet from New York. He has over a dozen books out. He is most known for his collection A Bellyful of Anarchy (Epic Rites Press). He lives alone with his cat and stays out of trouble. See more of his work at www.robplath.com.

Prose or Poetry: Do You Have to Choose?

This is the second of two instructional posts inspired by Steve Weddle's interview with me, specifically the question, "Is poetry harder to write [than prose]?"


I've always appreciated the sound of poetry, but from grade school to grad school, I felt I was on firmer ground writing prose. It wasn't until I helped Robert Plath with the HTML code for a faculty poetry site at Hofstra that I committed to writing poetry. (Have I mentioned my interest in writing began when an eighth-grade classmate had a book published in the school library? Jealousy is a great motivator.)

I think you do have to commit to whatever you do to get the most out of it, but this doesn't mean you have to choose one and make it a career path. Prose is better than poetry for some ideas and vice versa. I recommend you sharpen both tools, have both at your disposal, so when the time for each one comes, you're ready.


Yesterday, Prose and Poetry: Different Mindsets

Robert Plath

Rob Plath is a 39-year-old poet from Ronkonkoma, New York. He has five chapbooks of poetry out: Ashtrays and Bulls (Liquid Paper Press 2003), An An IV Bag Full Of Bile (Scintillating Publications 2007), Whiskey and Clay (Pudding House Publications 2008), Squeezing Blood From The Alphabet (Erbacce Press 2008) and Tapping Ashes In The Dark (Lummox Press 2008). He has one forthcoming called Poems To Jump Start A Deadman In His Tiny Room (Tainted Coffee Press). He lives with his women and two cats in a tiny apartment and tries his best to stay out of trouble.