Third Hundred and Sixty-eight Poems

By Paul David Robinson

Third volume of poetry includes poems written between 1967 and 1981. They describe the author's feelings and observations as he struggled to be faithful to his calling, his marriage, and himself. His faith in God sustained him throughout.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Paul David Robinson
• Release date: Jan 10, 2016
• ISBN: 9781310625435

Paul David Robinson

Dear Reader,I've been writing stories and poems for sixty years. I have a closet full of rejections and this year I decided to e-pub.The first novel I chose for this is dedicated to my wife, Carolyn. I wrote it in 1998. It is entitled: Summer. It is about pain and suffering, the difficult choices people face, and how love can overcome anything.As a pastor and theologian, I do not separate the sacred and the profane. The difference is in the human mind and not in life itself, just as evil is in the human mind and comes out of the choices people make and not from the devil who made me do it. The devil has nothing to do with it. We are the ones who choose to do evil or good. The whole world is in our hands. Enjoy the books.Paul David RobinsonReverend Paul David Robinson,BA, MDiv, Pastor, Retiredhttps://www.pauldavidrobinson.comhttps://www.pauldavidrobinson.com/blog/

Book preview

DEDICATION

This third volume of my poetry is dedicated to my children:

Nicodemus Paul Robinson

Scott Andrew Robinson

Peter David Robinson

You would not be

my children

if I had not taken

the road I took

with the choices

I made.

I love you very much.

Dad

FROM THE BACK COVER

The Cover was designed by Katrina Joyner. The cover art illustrates Poem 393 on page 214 in this Third Hundred and Sixty-eight Poems.

Like the flight of a bird

soaring, gliding, diving

Motion and feeling,

Sky and body,

Alive and whole.

And then frozen in death

to fall fluttering

Immobile, unfeeling

no longer a part of sky,

Dead and Separate,

into the earth.

Paul David Robinson

August 13, 1978

TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR

THIRD HUNDRED AND SIXTY-EIGHT POEMS

POEM

Dedication: You would not be

From the Back Cover: Poem 393

251: Concerning the Ides of March

252: A Song of Chris

253: The blowing palm bent southward

254: God has taken me in his hand

255: Reprise?

256: The Bo Tree’s leaves

257: Impotence

258a: If I could dance

258b: If I could dance (with music score)

259a: Moony

259b: Bowing, bending, glowing

260: Seminary Orientation

261: The Pasture in Autumn

262a: I once heard that an iconoclast

262b: Standing upon the arms

263: A self-confident and confirmed atheist

264: Would I kneel before the most high God?

265: The Case Against the Church in America

266: People walk and move about

267: If I could be A memory

268: Mourning

269: Marriage Trap

270: Pretty girl on the pot

271: Spinning, Spinning eiderdown

272: Bodily Resurrection

273: There are no steeples upon the earth

274: Upon the sands of time I mark

275: Butterfingers!

TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR

THIRD HUNDRED AND SIXTY-EIGHT POEMS

POEM

276: When the flower children arise

277: A Bee or Not a Bee

278: America is not Heard!

279: Anton, man of my heart

280: There oughta be a law against

281: Each moment she hurts

282: Has two legs, infinite minds

283: I could Charm a Walrus

284: So I am twenty-four

285a: Dear Grandma

285b: Upon the shadows of contemption

286: I live in a world of make believe

287: When softly the hours bulge into years

288: What A Matter

289: Once when I was in the mood

290: Somewhere about - I remember

291: E U L O G Y

292: Wild duck without wing

293: Dog and dog entwined

294: In peace and quiet

295: One brick of millions

296: A death storm rages

297: Black Ants on the floor

298: Gourmet of cuisine

299: Sedentary minds

300: I’m going home tonight

301: Upon the sands he found an inch

302: Freedom

303: Does a Man notice an Ant

304: Time is running out

305: April 2, 1969, A divorce agreement

TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR

THIRD HUNDRED AND SIXTY-EIGHT POEMS

POEM

306a: Ardent messenger of Love

306b: Angel bearer of glad tidings

307: Epitaph: Trees, take what’s left of me

308: (For Harriet Miller)

309: We are men

310: The sun stroked down

311: If you refuse to recognize me

312: To be caught in a cruel world

313: Can you believe this?

314: (thinking about Camus)

315: Last night while I lay sleeping

316: Are you going my way?

317: Where does it all end?

318: I walked along the shore

319: In the night, in the dark

320: When I was born I did not know

321: A few times in life One meets Another

322: Each of us feels committed

323: Reprise

324: Epitaph: And they shall beat

325: I may or may not fall asleep easily

326: Everybody is seeking

327: Sometimes I wonder where we are

328: Tonite is a nite to be with my beloved

329a: I saw a movie that made me sad

329b: Where have all the lovers gone?

330: I had a love she was soft and cool

331: So much of life is only pain

332: What does it mean?

333: Song for Joy

334: Phase One and Phase Two

TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR

THIRD HUNDRED AND SIXTY-EIGHT POEMS

POEM

335: O love of my life

336: To reach up to the stars

337: There’s a song in my heart

338: Every Christian is a Minister

339: May you always have faith

340: The intensity of my feelings against

341: Sterility

342: My Grandfather was a weaver

343: I dreamed one night of love so sweet

344: Oh Joanna

345: The tragedy of awakening

346: Call me When empty evening

347: O Let me See Thy Kingdom Lord

348: God is a flower

349: Lord, into thy hands we each commend

350a: Lord, I don’t really believe, But I trust

350b: Who are you?

351a: Somewhere amidst the clouds

351b: Who did it?

352: Everett Creech

353: I walked along life’s highway

354a: In Silence I rode upon a star

354b: Epitaph 1973

355: What does direction mean?

356: Strange Life continues

357: Stephen was killed

358: My God I’m a Book

359: How pale my sweet

360: Each person alone in her thoughts

361: When we have something to talk about

TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR

THIRD HUNDRED AND SIXTY-EIGHT POEMS

POEM

362: Every time we have a vote like this

363: I have forgotten the mystic pleasure

364: For Joy’s Roller Coaster Ride!

365: Birthday Poem for You (Mom)

366: Joy

367a: Dear Lord, In all my life

367b: Epitaph 1975

368: Summertime is a feeling in my Soul

369: I grieve for a loss she cannot share

370: In my dreams I had children

371: As other times in the past

372: Smile sometimes anyway

373: Joy’s Song

374: Somewhere in the back of my mind

375: You don’t know the meaning of Wait

376: Where do you begin?

377: The beginning

378: So short a time

379: Dear Lord, touch me. Heal me

380: For Student

381: I do not believe they prayed about it

382: I stand upon the sands of time

383: Dear Joy, I fell trapped and frustrated

384: Dear God, I feel like committing suicide

385: Dear , I realized today

386: I have been here before

387: The loss of my children

388: In one lifetime

389: I offered you friendship

390: Long ago there was loneliness

TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR

THIRD HUNDRED AND SIXTY-EIGHT POEMS

POEM

391: I miss the easy conversation

392: Long ago there was a dream

393: Like the flight of a bird

394: If you had come out of heaven

395: (Remembering Student)

396: You take the time to bake a cake

397: When I say goodbye

398: Dear God, I could say you are the one

399: One day when I was troubled

400: Summer’s Over

401: In times gone by

402: To be incorporeal- disembodied

403: Forgetting isn’t easy

404: I can’t cry, The emptiness is dry

405: When I felt this way before

406: Each one is a lonely island

407: Can’t Decide: Is she child or woman?

408: When someone lives within your mind

409: A thought unexpressed

410: Do not be discouraged

411: From the bottom of my heart

412: Colors so beautiful

413: I wore my clown tie today

414: We Cry When we see each othe

415: I will never give you this letter

416: On a Summer’s Day Lying in the grass

417: You’re like magic. Touching you

418: There is a sadness in divorce

Dear Reader

Third Hundred and Sixty-eight Poems

The poems in this book are presented in the order I wrote them. So Poem 251 is the first poem I wrote that is in this book and Poem 418 is the last poem I wrote that is in this book. All of these hundred and sixty-eight poems were written between March 1967 and March 1981.

There are actually more poems than that. When I found another poem at the bottom of a page or some other poems that were written about the same time, I put them in as #a, #b, and so forth.

To be true to my earlier self, I am signing each poem the way I signed them in the past.

I would write poetry on any paper product at hand, like on the back of an envelope or on a napkin. But usually I wrote them on wide-ruled paper. I wrote everything in pencil or ink. I wrote them when I thought of them and put them into a file folder. Sometimes I would put down the date and the time I wrote the poem. However, most of the time, I just wrote them.

In May 1960, a friend and I went to a Latin party at our high school Latin teacher’s house. Everyone going to the party was to wear togas.

I went as Julius Caesar and my friend John went as Brutus. At the time we talked about how long we would live. I planned to live to be 156 so I could see what the whole next century would bring to Earth in scientific knowledge and inventions. My friend only wanted to live to be 80 or so. He died of heart failure as a complication of diabetes at the age of 45. I am still alive at 70 and I haven’t changed my mind about how long I would like to live. But that is assuming that I have my health and my mind. That of course could change as time goes by. I might still take my own life as I have contemplated sometimes since I was nine years old.

This volume of poetry begins while I was attending my first quarter of studies at United Theological Seminary, in Dayton, Ohio. I was living in a one-room apartment with its own bathroom in a dormitory. I heated soup in an unopened can in the bathroom sink with the hot water running. Then I opened the can, mixed it with hot water from a coffee maker and ate it with crackers.

It is March 1967 and I am thinking about Julius Caesar and the Ides of March. Someone was retiring and moving to an old age home in Pennsylvania. She was selling the books she did not want to take with her. I bought a book by A. E. Coppard and read Judith.

I was engaged to be married in July 1967 and wondering if I should go through with the wedding. And I was considering whether to