As a child, I saw your birthplace;
a small cottage, barely four walls and a roof.
Nothing inside but a faint smell of urine,
like an empty barn; appropriate enough,
whether for a Prince of Peace,
or a Princess of War.

Your cathedral on a grassy hill
blessed you as you played your games
outside on the gnarled monstrosity
called “The Fairy Tree” –
while angels and saints talked to you.

Rheims, the cathedral of coronation,
spoke differently, of duty,
of kings and queens.
Which voice was loudest, Joan?
Shakespeare showed you aloof
to the shepherd from Domremy,
“Thou art no father nor friend of mine.”
Is that a clue, Maid?

Finally Chateau Jaulny whispered,
“Come to me. My walls will protect,
be it from armies or inquisitors.”
The dining hall had a portrait of a Lady,
looking weary.
Is that you, la Pucelle?
Did you hear of Margaret d’Anjou
and long to feel
the honesty of steel?

Author Biography

Robert Meyer received a BS in Math from UNLV in 1977, enrolling in their Master’s program in the fall. In May of 1978, during the last week of the school year, he had a brain hemorrhage (left side, affecting speech & right side of body) while lecturing in complex analysis. He completed work for his MS in Math in 1981. He began working for the US Air Force at Nellis AFB in various computer related jobs (database management, programming, and system administration) in 1982 and retired after 22 years.

The Passion of the Barbie

Both Simon Zealot and the Great Houdini
heard boasting. “I can saw a girl in half!”
Her brother stole her toy, said, “I’m no meany,”
then, “oops!” so all the little boys would laugh.

With tears the martyred doll was gently slipped
into a box while Ken fulfilled the suttee,
and in a candle his devotion dripped
at Barbie’s feet, a brownish ball of putty.

A midnight requiem, then they convened
tribunal for injustice to the coven.
His sister fetched his G.I. Joes. The fiend
deserves a cake – the girls turned on the oven.

Ten heads popped for the cake’s decor. They placed
it at his door, a gift in his own taste.

-RM

HE SAID / SHE SAID

If I can’t kiss your face each day, alone
Like this I’ll paint your visage in my room
On walls of memory, your words intone:
Veracious words, entrancing voice. Illume,
Eclipsing nature, even sun at noon.
Your name now makes me weary of my home,
Or rather, frightened, faced with my cocoon.
Unleash me. Love me under heaven’s dome.

Guys try to tame us. Bring me no bouquet
Of poetry, refrains that I’m to feign
An interest in. In vain you strain, take aim
With sonnets praising my black negligee.
Again I play the liar, say, “It’s migraine.”
You only see a trophy, game to claim.

-RM

Orpheus Enters Hades

Mirrors are the doors through which death comes and goes
Come to the mirror and go
down beneath the Paris Opera
down, down below the New York subways
down, down, down to the underground lake
smooth as glass, a slothful stream
We came to the river and wept to remember
oracle Apollinaire, bandages on his head
(concealing devices for messages from other worlds)
but Peace brought Death, as passionless as Socrates.
I too had bandages on my head;
I, patron saint of mediocrities!
Reflect on this, did my Muse depart?
or is vers libre really art?
is it the creature that doesn’t exist?
Muses are isomorphic to a random-number generator in the mind of God
the artist is merely an output device.
“I love your verses with all my heart, dear Miss Barrett”
…grief is passionless…
Go tell the king no prophecies, the water has dried up at last.
When Orpheus was hit crossing the street in his electric wheelchair,
what does his survival mean?
When Eurydice was hit crossing the street with her seeing-eye dog,
what does her death mean?
Just random numbers?
Wie bitter sind der Trennung Leiden!
He had also descended into the lower parts of the earth…
sans hair, sans teeth, sans claws,
…sans mask…
No, I am not Orpheus, but was meant to be.
Grief is Passionless.

-RM

Notes: Jean Cocteau’s “Orphee”, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Phantom of the Opera”, CBS TV series “Beauty & the Beast”, Psalms 137:1, Cocteau’s “Professional Secrets”, Peter Shaffer’s “Amadeus”, Rainer Rilke’s “Sonnets to Orpheus”, Robert Browning’s first letter to Elizabeth Barrett, Elizabeth B Browning’s “Grief”, the last words of the oracle at Delphi, the death of Debbie Anderson, “Magic Flute”, Ephesians 4:9, “As You Like It”, “B & B” and “Phantom”, TS Eliot’s “Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, sonnet “Grief”

Author Biography

Robert Meyer received a BS in Math from UNLV in 1977, enrolling in their Master’s program in the fall.  In May of 1978, during the last week of the school year, he had a brain hemorrhage (left side, affecting speech & right side of body) while lecturing in complex analysis.  He completed work for his  MS in Math in 1981.  He began working for the US Air Force at Nellis AFB  in various computer related jobs (database management, programming, and system administration) in 1982 and retired after 22 years.