Robert Witmer

By Robert WitmerTokyo, Japan I get in line with the seabirds. They seem to be looking at their reflections in the thin film of water behind the retreating wave. So I look down. There I am. In a baggy bathing suit with a snorkel in my left hand. It’s hot, and the water smells like gasoline. A kid runs by and the birds scatter. There I am. In a baggy bathing suit – all alone. a bald tireon a patch of icethe world turns First published in The Other Bunny, January 6, 2025.

Robert WitmerTokyo, Japan “If only we could placate the world’s rage with a drop of poetry or of love . . . .”— Pablo Neruda unemployed youtha roll of the diceagainst a brick wall eyes shut tightthe stone sleepsin a fist light bleedingthrough stained glassthe rubble still warm bomb sitenothing but a staircasebeneath the pale stars war gravesthe silenceof forgetful flags life after deaththe hidden truthmaggots dreams clotthe bloodstream of timefighting for peace summit meetingthe overwhelming presenceof nothingness shouldering responsibilityhe listens carefullyto his parrot cover-upblaming the systemfor the fig leaf absence of doubtthe poisoned chalicewe swallow with a yawn online…

By Robert WitmerTokyo, Japan The Cuban Missile Crisis. I was in grade school and we had drills. The same loud alarm as a fire drill, but a different experience altogether. Instead of walking single file out to the playground, joking around with your friends, we had to sit against a wall in a dark corridor hugging our knees to our hearts. Dead silence was expected. But sometimes we whispered. Kid stuff. spring rainchildren holding umbrellasupside down (First published in Presence, Issue #81, March 2025.)

By Robert WitmerTokyo, Japan new musica catatonic scalefor the poet’s requiem we are but cloudsof cosmic dustcollapsing in a dream apples sweetenin the shadowshungry birds dark secretsfrom a broken heartarctic waters warm waterinto wineresource wars the courthousein the pawnshop windowantique scales havesand halve notstaking the last peace vacuum sealedthe totalitarian mindsof mixed nuts fanning himselfwith a meat cleaverthe butcher sighs a thin ratover broken glassmoonlight in a slum raina gravedigger’s fingersflipping a coin gravestoneshuddle in spring grassa church bellwithout a tongue waves leapfrogthe ripping tideempty pews dream songsin night’s chamberpot our eyesglazed donutssweetening the whole each pledgea bullet whistlinghand over…

By Robert WitmerTokyo, Japan Herdsman: I am on the brink of dreadful speech.Oedipus: And I of dreadful hearing. Yet I must hear. wise menthe star that guideson the blink the labyrinthbehind her eyesa broken thread a brilliant ideaout of the blueIcarus twitterthe beadin his whistle sunlighton icethe banker’s smile somewherein the dark rooma clock ticks wild canariessinging on the wingfrom the coal mine climate changewe turn to facea firing squad wara fistful of ashesin a game of dice twisting shadowsbeneath falling leaveswar’s children little red roosterthe hen’s dreamsizzles in the skillet First Published: Lothlorien Poetry Journal, September 2023

By Robert WitmerTokyo, Japan A poem asks the reader to participate in the making of its meaning, and in this way binds the reader to the writer, while leaving the reader free to bring her own mental associations to the poet’s words and images. Thus, the poem combines a private and a public language in a process of communication. While poetry “makes nothing happen” (as Auden stated in his famous eulogy for Yeats), it can lift the veil from deeply disturbing aspects of our collective lives and in so doing ask us to rethink those troubling realties, which we often…

By Robert WitmerTokyo, Japan lightimprisoned in diamondsthe dark mine a dollar a day windblown sand –children in ragsstaring as the boat recedes orphans at the stoplighttogetherwe roll up our windowswintera bent spoonin an empty potshoe polishthe toxic smellof unemploymenta few starsfewer leaveshis cardboard homea rainbow ribbonon a rich man’s skytree stumpsoutside the new megastoreempty shopping cartsfor the homelessyesterday’s snowunder a naked treea homeless woman awaiting springold nails squeakingin shrinking woodcampaign promisesthe populist’s campaigna loud speakerdistorts the platitudesair raidour last loaf of breadblackens in the oven a child’s balloondrifts awaythe wall crowned with broken bottles First published: Drifting Sands Haibun, Issue…

By Robert WitmerTokyo, Japan What would the world be, once bereftOf wet and of wildness? Let them be left            — Gerard Manley Hopkins, “Inversnaid” From Pangaea to the Tethys Sea our Mother Earth goes round, and round our central star appears, the Sun, traveling east to west, from Ethiopia to Hesperides, each day a blessing in this circle of life. Brought into this vital light with plants of every kind and fauna filling land and sea, fruitful, we were. And it was good. We crept into caves to mark the walls with ochred images of creatures honored for their flesh, their…