Fiction   Essays   Poetry  The Ten On Baseball Chapbooks In Memory






Robert Wynne




Another Fantasy

             after Louise Glück

I’ll tell you something: every night
people are dreaming. And that’s not all. Every day
infants stare at the creation surrounding each crib
and learn things for which they have no language.
They are the past, bundled in cotton
and smiling like mirrors. What they have seen

will become what they can’t keep from seeing
until they capture it on film, on canvas
or in some other vocabulary
not yet developed. There are words
in your head right now

plotting against you. Close your eyes
and witness memory’s struggle
with the empirical world. These dreams
are the measure of belief’s stubbornness
in the face of reality, until we give in
to sleep’s narcotic call and fall

away from what we’re paid to rely on
to become a character in another fantasy.
See the bright lights? Walk toward them
and whatever you do
don’t look back.




Penguin Football

Opus has always wanted to fly
but football is his secret second love.
As he pulls on shoulder pads

in preparation for the first game
he knows he’s ready for anything.
It begins and he digs sharp orange feet

into the soft grass, staring up
to where the sun was a moment ago.
It’s no surprise there are few odes

to defensive linemen. Opus stands
eclipsed in the great shadow
of number 41, and looks down

for the soft hope of dandelions.
No luck. The quarterback shouts
his siren song, and our hero relaxes

watching his nemesis step back.
The ball is snapped, and suddenly
the field has become an aircraft carrier

in reverse. Opus sees his lungs
in the distance, beak breathless
as the ground recedes. Backwards.

He realizes he’s finally flying
backwards. He spreads short-sleeves
and wings wide just before

remembering why no one dreams
of landing.




Business Trip – February 14, 2007

On the Phoenix news tonight
the lead story is a woman
who tied-up her lover
and cut him repeatedly

so she could enact the lost
fantasies of a vampire.
Reality always exceeds expectations.
I want to thank you so much

for never trying to drink my blood.
It’s the small things that matter
and this evening I replaced
the touch of your skin

with warm pool water – to no avail.
Soon, I will take you far away
but I can’t recapture
the time I’ve spent

in hotel rooms, airports,
and office buildings
for the greater good
of capitalism. Karl Marx

would be so disappointed
in what the free market
has done to intimacy.
I miss you like the future

misses the past. Consider
the life of the mayfly:
24 brief hours
and not a minute

to waste.





©2008 by Robert Wynne

Robert Wynne earned his MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University . He is the author of 6 chapbooks, and 2 full-length books of poetry. His first full-length collection, Remembering How to Sleep, was the recipient of the Poetry Society of Texas’ 2006 Eakin Book Award. His second full-length collection, Museum of Parallel Art , was published in February 2008 by Tebot Bach Press. He has won numerous prizes, and his poetry has appeared in magazines and anthologies throughout North America . He lives in Burleson, Texas, with his wife and daughter. For more information see his Web site.


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