Wordsmithing
juggling for meaning
cascading for
coherent cogitation.

My soundless mind!
I’m out in the glare—
the darkness
of a blank stare.

Cascading a dangling
ambiguous word
this tinnitic ring
rings louder.

A funerary knell?
A mystic tune?
A cryptic note
in discord?
An anguish tear?

Should I write
what it might be?
Should it be
an inappropriate
intent?

Should it be what I think
it should be
or leave it
for the reader to mutter?

By Curt Robbins

Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.
Mending Wall, Robert Frost

An old three-foot chain fence
was up long before we moved in.
To play in the yard you must stay
within, I’d explain—
though I dislike fences,
they limit the children’s range.

When they learned of my two children,
the disgruntled old couple came out,
attached a makeshift fence
from a stack of splintered
staves to the existing wire fence—
nearly three feet higher
with sharp rusty nails protruding.

One day, Benjamin inadvertently threw
a ball, intended for Rebecca,
over the fence–I was watching.
Out came the frail old lady,
angrily standing by the fence,
with a cold stare at the children—
thrust her middle finger!

By Curt Robbins

Hearing aids
were the things
I’ve worn
most of my life.

It didn’t mean
I understood the sounds
the noises
the voices
the bells
only
the bangs
the booms
and no whistles.

Earmolds
were impressions
of the impairment –
the sweaty itchiness
the obnoxious feedbacks
the waxy ugliness—
Oh, how we bitched

But nobody ever bitched
about those who were
wearing hearing aids.

Cochlear Implant
was the thing
the surgeon
had to do.

Hearing things
that I’ve never heard
most of my life
since my first hearing aid as a baby
would make every bit of difference.

I’m beginning
understand
the new sounds
though
I may never
hear everything –
still it’s better than the hearing aid.

Still,
those who never
tried
bitched –

thinking I’m now
like a hearing person.

By Curt Robbins

There’s a crowd kibitzing about
a cement-molded
checkerboard table
an elderly black fellow
and a young Hispanic kid
on a chessmen rumble
near the winter-dried fountain
football tosses so many stealthy runners.

Benched readers take comfort from warm books.

An old man asleep on a park bench
under blankets of newspapers
littering the park
page by page.

Chessmen clocking stratagems—
breathing vapory breath
signaling tells of awe
intimidating swift moves

wintry swish at the Washington Square.

By Curt Robbins

Deaf –
Am I such
an inquisitive misanthrope
whose voice is louder and rowdier
than sounds arousing
curiosity?
Deaf –
I once sat by
the orchestra pit
in a theater
watching dancing feet
gracefully tip the stage
while her liquescent arms
softly stroke the air
like flaunting branches
from swinging trees
in whispering winds
at the height of
the blithe
violin bows.
Deaf –
When asleep
I awaken in dreams
hearing capricious poetics
from the flow of hands
dancing in the cadence
of deviant voices.
Deaf –
Can words
persevere
without the genteel hands
even with enraged voices?
Deaf –
Am I such an ostentatious
meditative misanthrope
whose words dance on the page
at the heights
of deprecating hands
in the verses
of an impassioned
voice?

By Curt Robbins

for S.F.W.
There was once
a five-and-a-half-year-old
precocious Deaf kid who
was taken to try out
for a little league baseball team.
He was among the 50 plus kids
whose daddies thought
their sons were the best.
The Deaf kid tried out for catcher
and turned out to be the best –
even his daddy thought so, too.
The coaches were quite impressed
by the Deaf kid’s abilities
to bat, catch, and throw.
The coaches gathered
to declare the choicest of the bunch.
Names of each kid were called
but the Deaf kid
who was so good
was, for sure, the catcher
for the new team
stood waiting –
knowing he was really so good.

A few times the Deaf kid’s name
was called but each time
there was no response.
A coach finally came over
asked the Deaf kid
Where’s your daddy?
The Deaf kid waved for Daddy to come.
The smiling coach said a thing or two
but there was no response –
Daddy was deaf, too!
Daddy pulled his pad and pencil
from his shirt pocket
and wrote asking the startled coach
Please write what you say…
This deaf-mute boy cannot play baseball.

By Curt Robbins

Shofar
TEKIAH SHEVARIM-TERUAH TERUAH
TEKIAH SHEVARIM TEKIAH
TEKIAH TERUAH TEKIAH GEDOLAH
Speak to me, Elohim!
I cannot hear You,
or understand You
Hebraically.
I cannot see Your Hands.
Speak to me, Elohim!
No man
whose hands I see
is Your dayyan.
No rabbi Your word.
Speak to me, Elohim!
I am not free
or enslaved –
I cannot hear You.
Speak to me, Elohim!
Blare out Your shofar –
I shall hear You not,
nor ever see Your Hands.

By Curt Robbins

A black woman on TV
on a barber’s chair
lambasting indoctrinated
black children educated
in public schools –
white man are superior beings.

A Japanese poetess
wrote ancient haikus
parenthetically wondering
who on her pillow
her samurai shares.

A cross-dressed authoress
wrote in pretense
she’s a man
of her word.

A Brit wrote a play
a pauper flower girl
a guinea pig on a bet
she’d be a magnificent
debutante.

A professor wrote
a story of a boy
raised by wolves
abducted by men –
living incessantly
like an animal.
Some Deaf
grappled for air to sign
Some deaf
gasped for air to say –
the light flashed
no food for naught.
That’s the tale no one told.

By Curt Robbins