We play marbles my Lady Death and I
This world is only one
Of many scattered on a transparent plane, letters make words on a page
Stretched taut over a void
Drumhead on the abyss that rings with each subtle flick
Was this Hesse’s glass bead game?
I don’t know
I don’t read the classics
I don’t have to read the classics to know
Gold has intrinsic value
It is beautiful even if I have none
ready-to-hand and I know that
We play abyssal games
Sing into the void my Lady Death and I
The echo never returns or in any case we are still waiting and talking
Nothing runs out we can fill this space and the echos will
All freeze in midair until there is no room
To resonate, only endless resonance
Of agonistic romance passing time in eternity
The point, the line, the circle around which a question dances long enough becomes an orb
The wobbles in its turning accrete at certain timescales
The dialectic, the turn of the screw
Between conceptual clarity and sentimental affect
Stone cold and cloying warm
Dialectic, dialectic, dialectic enough!
Some tensions never resolve
Belief and Desire, Desire and Belief
Enough said
Let’s play my Lady Death and I
who hates games but I’ll still play
The smile on my face is not a fake, it is death’s head
For each other we were made
Flick the stars and planets in their transits
All aligns momentary then chaos reigns again
Stochastic music and music’s spatial component
The aural is visual and tactile in its turn and striking
Bang the drum in rhythm it rings
Concentric rings and retrogrades
Orbits paths walked and tread by fingers toes
Traced walked backwards
Worn into the skin
Palm lines tell the truth that there is none
No object made without a share in cathexis
Mistaken for love or correctly identified who knows
I won’t know until it kills me
You kill me Lady Death
Transcendental horizon of my being that I love to face
And race towards walking backwards
Running backwards into oblivion is the hero’s death and glorious
Direction is perspectival what you see from all sides
And I project from all sides
No poker face on any stakes
All my skin is in this game and I don’t read rules
And I don’t read the classic
I wrote the classics, and gold has its intrinsic value that I know
It is beautiful
-- Sam Robinson is a writer from Massachusetts, whose poetry has appeared previously in Blue Arrangements, No More Prostitutes, Spectra Poets and SWAMP. He is also the singer and lyricist of Be Released, and can be found on instagram @baldsinatra.