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Best Poems Written by Robert Schatz

Below are the all-time best Robert Schatz poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

Details | Robert Schatz Poem

Oh Captcha Squares

Oh captcha squares, oh captcha squares
What are these objects in your frames?
Oh captcha squares, oh captcha squares
Why must they gotta be the same?

    Cars and busses, traffic lights
    Bicycles and motor bikes
    Crosswalks, signs, and steps and stairs
    Fire hydrants everywhere        

    Boats, planes and parking meters 
    Tickets, fines, misdemeanors
    Why are you so fond of these?
    Why are palms the only trees? 

Oh captcha squares, oh captcha squares
The pictures trapped inside of there
Oh captcha squares, oh captcha squares
Depict a world so bleak and bare

   Arid, bland, unaesthetic
   Barren, drab, unpoetic
   Sterile, cold, antiseptic
   Unconcerned, apathetic 
   
   Somber, sad, and desolate 
   Woeful, bland, pedestrian
   Weary, grim, dreary, hopeless
   Grainy, gray, out of focus 
 

It doesn’t need to be this way…

Many things could fill your squares
Why not fill these things in there?

   Tambourines and castanets 
   Bass trombones and clarinets
   English horns and piccolos
   Harpsichords and xylophones

   Fiddles high and Irish whistles
   Jingle bells and finger cymbals
   5-string banjos, mandolins
   Saxophones, accordions

   Desmond Tutu and Mandela
   Cassius Clay, Cinderella
   Charlemagne and Genghis Kahn
   George and Ringo, Paul, and John 

   Twain and Edgar Allan Poe
   Wayne and Brando and Monroe
   Ida Wells, Frida Kahlo
   Steinem, Parks, and Ferraro

   River Thames and stormy seas
   Winter wrens and bumble bees
   Cyprus, ash, oak, fir, and pine
   Sassafras, willow, and lime

   Daffodils and magnolias
   Marigolds and begonias
   Cabbage, beets, and potatoes
   Carrots, beans, and tomatoes

Oh Captcha Squares, Oh Captcha Squares
If your pictures must remain
Oh Captcha Squares, Oh Captcha Squares
How aboutcha change the frames?

   Captcha circles, captcha suns
   All the captcha olygons
   Wiggly captcha twiggly lines
   Twisty captcha twiny vines 
  
   Captcha diamonds, captcha hearts
   Captcha clovers, moons, and stars
   Captcha ribbons, Captcha lace
   Captcha colored string bouquets

Oh Captcha Squares, Oh Captcha Squares
We understand you're here to stay.
Oh Captcha Squares, Oh Captcha Squares
Just be more creative, OK?

Details | Robert Schatz Poem

Four Little Rooms

He lived in four little rooms
locked behind the door.
And the night shined through
where a light shined before.
A red flame burned ashen gray,
lying on the floor.

So you move yourself along.
And grind on down.
And scrape the path you drag around.
Stumblin’ on the way.
A new day with no grace to say,
starin’ down the ground.

They’re softer lies to swallow
when you’re drunk.
Or when you’re full of faith
and barely saved.
It’s only things that fade.
And leave impressions in the dark.
And demons in the haze.
Sunlight burns night away,
and darkness into day.	

So sing inside your walls.
And make the lamps low.
And watch the white screen glow,
black on grey.
The words that you say.
And drain yourself away.
Another night burned white by day.
I beg you Darkness, come again!

Are you fated?
Or are you led?
Well either way the moon will grow.
And spread out wide across the snow.
Piled high and ploughed.
Raised between the lines.
And layered across the years.

Details | Robert Schatz Poem

as expected

a child's kite
lifted by the breeze
as expected

Details | Robert Schatz Poem

No Perchance to Dream

Now I lay me down to sleep
Alone upon these empty sheets
Of paper lying on the bed
Side table clock says 5 a.m.

Oh dark of night, I beg thee stay
Keep the morning light at bay
Oh dusk beloved!
Oh dawn be damned!
Me pull the curtains tight again

And only this I have to show
These tries at rhymes
Turned tales of woe:
    Of sticky socks
    On stinky feet
    Sit ankle bones
    Prop broken knees
    ‘Neath pasty thighs
    With muscle pains
    Crooked back
    And shhit for brains

Tired eyes must take their rest so
Leave behind this manifesto 
For the rights
Of righteous minds
To get their forty-winks, sublime

Después de la fiesta
While they take la siesta
Sun sets low
On the horizon
But lo, the sun set also rises

O’er every heart and soul supine
Crouched behind their window blinds
Who heave a sigh 
At yet another 
Evening pass without a slumber

All perchance to dream is lost so
As tonight is now tomorrow:
That is all
And with that said
I take me self to bed again

Details | Robert Schatz Poem

The Department Meeting

As we did the month preceding 
This the next department meeting
Time and time without a reason
To be present or to listen

For there’s nothing on the floor
Beneath us different than before 
It was the last time that we met
As everybody knows and yet

Again we sit around the table
Top our seats but still unable
To understand why we should read
Another memo from the Dean

Of students who have never met ‘em
Or her or maybe better, them
For whom the Chair is working under
Standing in the room, we wonder

How’d it ever get to this
Friday morning’s foolishness
Of faculty who should know better
Than to debate what doesn’t matter

That they’ll only misconstrue
The points they’re missing when they do
Interrupt each other speaking
Words better spent in classrooms teaching

Details | Robert Schatz Poem

German Potato Salad

The grandfather on my mother's side was a cheapskate. 
A real cheapskate.
One Christmas, he gave me a used paperback book.
Something like “Jimmy Plays Baseball.”
It was written for a 7 year old child, and I was considerably older than that.
Still had “5 cents” written in pencil on the first page. 
No foolin'.
Asked he, “You ever read that one?”
Replied I, “No granddad. Can’t say I have. Thank you.”
“Merry Christmas.”

I hated going to visit them.
In the row house in Baltimore city, where my mother grew up.
(‘Balmer.’ ‘Balmer, Merilan.' “How you doin’ hon?”)
Me and my sister sitting on the wood floor in the living room.
Positioned dead eyed to the manger on the mantle.
Given board games to occupy our time.

My father loved talking to him, Leo, Leo Groeninger.
Because he was brilliant.
And he knew everything about everything.
A sedentary encyclopedia on the spectrum.
His second wife sitting dutifully next to him on the couch.
My mother sitting in a chair, the only one left in the living room.
“Maybe you kids would like to play checkers, or Parcheesi.”

But he had one saving grace: 
His German potato salad.
The real thing.
Made with ham fat.
Five pounds of ham fat.
Or bacon, if you didn't have any ham fat.

Damn that stuff was good!

Details | Robert Schatz Poem

One Time In Nursery School

One time when I was in nursey school, Miss Shanahan had everyone sit in a circle and one-by-one say what we wanted to be when we grow up.

It was what you’d expect…
Doctor
Firefighter
Astro naught
Truck driver
Race car driver
Veterinarian
Police officer
Movie star
Baseball player
Actress
Princess
Detective
Engineer…and the like

Then it was my turn:

“What do you want to be when you grow up Bobby?”
I thought about it a minute, and said
“God.”

That threw her for a loop.

There was no braggadocio.
No narcissism, no conceit, no misplaced pride
I didn’t think I had a shot at it or anything.
Just seemed to me it would be the top job.

Can’t blame me.

Details | Robert Schatz Poem

Dear Fate

Dear Fate,

I hate you. 
I detest you. 
I despise you.
I loathe you in ridicule. 
I reject you outright.
You are no good Fate. I am sure of it. 

Que sera, sera. 
Whatever will be, will be. 
I guess you’re right Fate. 
Thanx for the tip.
Thanx for the insight.
Thanx for letting us know in advance.

You are elusive Fate. 
We cannot pin you down.
You elude our scrutiny.
You evade our inspection.
You fail to meet the most elementary criterion of science. 
We cannot prove you wrong Fate. 
Good for you.

But you are wrong Fate. 
Always wrong.
There are no paths to unfold.
No destinies to fulfill.
No predetermined series of events. 
Things are not supposed to be as they are
Things are not as they are supposed to be
We do not abide by your counsel.
You got that Fate?
 
You are Calvin’s bread and butter. 
He your bastard child. 
Predestined like the rest of us
Preacher of kismet and reprobation
Of freedom in bondage to sin

Why the conundrum, Fate? 
Things are confusing enough as they are. 
Why do you trifle with us?
Why do you veil your objectives?
Do you delight in your trickery? 
Snicker at our bemusement? 
Grin and chuckle at us, hapless and unaware?

You are despicable Fate. 
Yahweh at his worst.
More ruinous than plagues of grasshoppers and locust.
Even death of the first born child. 
You void all human experience.
All the bravery, all the grandeur, all the malice; all the trials and tribulations.
All but labors in futility. 
And you knew it all along.
Didn’t you Fate? 

And another thing, Fate: 
You are not a mystery.
You are neither strange, nor cryptic, nor enigmatic. 
You are a bore. 
There is no wonder in predestination. 
No puzzle to be solved
No secrets to reveal
Que sera, sera. 

You offer us nothing Fate. 
Free us from your grasp. 
Leave us our volition, our discretion, our Will.
Let us try and succeed. 
Let us try and fail. 
Leave us to our own devices. 
Leave us alone.

Details | Robert Schatz Poem

Flowers and Daisies

Once there was a boy who loved to pick flowers.
He wished he could pick all the flowers in the world.
He knew he could not do this, but it did not make him sad.
There were flowers everywhere, more than he could ever pick.

And anyway, it would not be good to pick all the flowers in the world.
For there must always be flowers growing in the fields.
Flowers charm the earth, and they wish to be in the company of other flowers.

One day the boy came across a Daisy.
It was his first Daisy.
It was the most beautiful flower he had ever seen.
The boy decided not to pick the Daisy.
Instead, he would let the Daisy grow.
And grow.
And grow.
And live until a ripe old age.
And then lay down to die, giving birth to new Daisies.
The Daisies yet to come.

The boy thought there was something special about the Daisy.
That of the flowers in the world, it was the most extraordinary.
The most extraordinary flower that has ever been.
He knew that this might not be true.
Afterall, there were flowers he had never seen before.
And no matter how long he lived, he would never see them all.

But the boy was right.
This Daisy, like all Daisies, was extraordinary.

Because the Daisy is a perfect flower.
It has always been a perfect flower.
Daisies do not change.
They have never changed.
There is no reason for them to change.
They are immune to the laws of natural selection.
They are faultless, unblemished, and without sin.
They are the archetypal flower.

Do the Daisies know this?
That is hard to say. Who knows what Daisies think?

And why the Daisy? 
Of all the flowers in the world, why should the Daisy alone be perfect?

Was it the will of God?
No.
Was it their destiny?
No.
Were they lucky?
Perhaps, if it pleases you to think of things this way.

But really it was happenstance.
Pure happenstance.
And that is the most beautiful thing of all.

Details | Robert Schatz Poem

Led the Horse To Water

Led the horse to water.
All he does is eat.