Robert Hill Long is a native of coastal North Carolina who raised a family in western Oregon; he now teaches at Pennsylvani State University. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, and has won several poetry prizes, most recently the 2004 War Poem Prize for “Gulf War News Sign-Off, With Video Tricks”.
There’s a Robinson in Tulsa
milking Toggenburg goats. And one
in Sri Lanka, peeling cinnamon.
A Filipino Robinson impales tourist
County fair August, windless sunset:
Robinson can’t hearing Hoobastank
pounding their overamped, unvarying fortissimos
a mile away to girl-screams.
Overhead, silence of jet trails
Sometimes Robinson, tainting his fingers
or cauterizing eyeballs with what
passes for Imperial Americana news,
wishes he had taken up
the bazooka, not the guitar.