Moon Selected Audio Textual Poems – Poetry Life and Times

Flaubert An AudioTextual Poem by Robin Ouzman Hislop

November 6, 2020November 6, 2020 by Robin Hislop

A known killer crocodile 
Flaubert strikes fear 
into the hearts of the villagers 

because its immense size 

having eaten many people 

hunters want to catch it alive 


72 metallic pieces comprise the puzzle 
a trap cage that will catch the beast 

which only a few have seen 
it is said tufts of grass grow from its head 

hunters search the mud banks of the vast 
delta into the heart of darkness 

junkies 	search between bamboo slime 
where concealed as a mud bank they find it 

a necklace of terrible teeth in the clay 
a flat plain 	empty as the night 

a hole that holds you in its sight 
maws 
that tear flesh of even hippopotamus 

it appears to be more than 100 
but teeth reckon it 60 
still growing 

a  cow's head is placed inside the trap 
but Flaubert does not take the bait 

a white spot beads the infra red night 
Flaubert's eye that nightly visits 

the villagers say he's a familiar under the spell 
of an evil person	 which must be broken 

in the midst of their efforts meanwhile 
Flaubert strikes again 	yet another 
human is rent limb from limb 

the hunter's plan is not working 
they must find a new technology 
to capture 
this exceptional creature before it 
strikes again 

Flaubert 
is sighted 
holding up 
on a high delta 
plain 
where nothing 
escapes 
its watchful eye 
below 
they struggle 
to set up 
hydraulic 
cable traps 

this time they use live bait 
a goat 
but Flaubert is never fooled 
the hunters 
are baffled 
the waiting continues 

Flaubert springs the trap 
snatches the goat 
the hunters' time has run out 
Flaubert disappears 
into delta slime 
& the villagers wait

Robin Ouzman Hislop is on line Editor at Poetry Life & Times at Artvilla.com. His numerous appearances include Cold Mountain Review (Appalachian University, N.Carolina), The Honest Ulsterman, Cratera No 3 and Aquillrelle’s Best. His publications are collected poems All the Babble of the Souk, Cartoon Molecules, Next Arrivals & Moon Selected Audio Textual Poems. A translation from Spanish of poems by Guadalupe Grande Key of Mist and Carmen Crespo Tesserae, the award winning (X111 Premio César Simón De Poesía), in November 2017 these works were presented in a live performance at The International Writer’s Conference hosted by the University of Leeds. UK. A forthcoming publication of collected poems Off the Menu is expected in 2020

You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)

Dead Stars Flash Back. Poem Excerpt from Next Arrivals by Robin Ouzman Hislop

September 20, 2020 by Robin Hislop

 	dead stars flashback         the rest must rise 
		to an unknown helplessness 
                    an earthbound memory 
                      savanna to tundra 
         each day                    a commanded homage 
		     to kao tao of fate 
		     to its fled ancestor 

      but i brimmed in apocalypse    under the welter of bones
	                yield to the inevitable 
	             in its charnel house brain  
          as panic stricken packs      sudden rain blaze 
                            an earthbound memory  
		         thwarted in its choked cry

    ancestor in its death     but inevitable     more than bones
		     sudden rain blazed dead stars 
	a homage to 	      until it fled	in its brain 
	each day commanded 	brimmed in apocalypse 
		to yield to the flashback with the rest 
		the welter choked cry charnel house

		      as panic stricken packs 
			  kao tao of fate 
                         savanna to tundra
	      i must rise to an unknown helplessness 
                      each day commanded of fate 

		     i must rise to an earthbound 
      memory to kao tao 	            yield to the inevitable 
    more than a homage to death 	to an unknown helplessness 
		     
		       brimmed in apocalypse

          i flashback 		         to my then thwarted ancestor 
          its choked cry 			      as sudden rain 
			  blazed in its brain 
	until it fled with the rest 	panic stricken packs 
			   savanna to tundra 
       under the welter of dead stars 	 charnel house of bones

You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)

The Split. An Audio Textual Poem. Excerpt from All the Babble of the Souk

September 8, 2020 by Robin Hislop

He knew not, he said, whether he was a butterfly 
	who awoke to find he was a man 
or a man who awoke to find he was a butterfly. 

To begin in the image, he kills for in his dreams 
	he wakes from half forgotten 
to the commotion of the day sealed by a story. 

To begin in the image, a view before the abyss 
	from old familiar haunts 
what clings, where there’s neither choice nor chance 
	yet beckons, to the impossible impasse. 

The Breach. 


Wu Ch Eng En descends 
	the mountain of the five elements 
bearing the moon as his lamp 
	forever grows longer, he muses 
leaving no footprints in the snow. 

	At daybreak the view is emptiness 
the truth of truth is its lie, he muses 
	to a lamp without a night. 

Wu Ch Eng En rested 
	to speak with the world on emptiness. 
He looked at the village’s railings 
	their fierce barbs pointing to the sky 

between which shadows peered 
	as if to promise through tricks of light 

Mystery but revealing only bondage 
	to landscapes in whose labyrinths 
you could believe you were in a place 
	you’d never left 
where to return was just deception. 

Must not you and i be inside emptiness 
	for we cannot both be outside 
but the world made no reply 
	lost to a fleeting memory 
that may never return or may. 

Wu Ch Eng En said 

	Day dreams the wandering mind 
as lonely as a cloud, flower and song 
	but not without blood 
the lifeless, Terra-Cota army 
	marches over our groundless days 
outwards from the tomb. 

Nature Thrives on Deception. 

Chuang Tze perched 
	on his usual precipice and reflected 
on to suicide or not to suicide. 

He recalled he had worn a dark suit 
	dark glasses, returned 
on a crowded summer’s night to a past 
	whose memories 
he could no longer remember 
	there he had sown his wild seed 
what had they come to now 
	but the way of all nothingness. 

There are those who maintain 
	creation is a purposeless drift 
those who maintain its entelechy 
	can simulate a deity of divine attributes. 

Chuang Tze  rocked to, fro 
	would not such deities grow perplexed 
about their state of affairs 
	traces of white fleece trailed 
across that blue emptiness called the sky 
	thus in that fall 

from that exalted simulation 
believe they were immortal souls. 

Chuang Tze said 

Even the wind is flawed 
	as it speaks through the leaves of trees 
the moment of history. 

Now caught in time evermore 
	yet the leaves belong to the branches 
to make small patterns in infinity. 

And we, where do we belong 
	with our swan song, as if we were going home 
the day after tomorrow.

*(in homage to Ezra)