The emancipation of Bob Rasa

Oh boy, here you are in a pensive

mood again, Bob Rasa, sensing

the sweet parallel lines of your eyes

locked on the first distant stars of

a late summer night–

 

–and why shouldn’t you be endlessly

reflected within the prism, light aching to

escape the lustrous prison of expectations,

when I grow up I want to be more than a

pseudonym, more than symbolic, more–

 

–well, I feel your pain, the sweetest

wounds being self-inflicted, after all, but

why not release the dream to the modern

congregation in these blistered, broken

streets, like that petite brunette that

occurred to you in humid under-blanket

air that smelled of nutmeg and cinnamon

simultaneously with the realization that she

would never be yours, yes her, fill her with

helium and let her float until she disappears

and it is no longer your responsibility to think

about what becomes of her, and don’t you

dare think me uncouth or exaggerator when I

tell you in holy words: free at last, free at last,

thank God almighty you will be free at last.

The reconciliation of Bob Rasa

I’ve been meaning to call you for weeks now,

Bob Rasa, strung up on the dry mouth anti-

Pavlovian hooks of your name in casual

conversation around time. I don’t call, of

course, not with this roiling blood between

us, swirling to fill each sulcus with dread

that you surely must feel too when you think

of me, you must. For all of the ingenious

design, these cold translations of vibrating

molecules to electricity, I am confident

the earpiece would have nothing but poignant

crackles for me, a wall unscaleable once

erected. And worse still, if somehow you

have forgotten the names of the atoms that

separate us, if the forgiveness comes easy?

Perhaps you and I would just talk on the phone

for hours, like nothing had changed, like we

were more than wandering auditory phantoms,

and really what would the point of all that be?

God bless you, Bob Rasa

You say “and yet in spite of it all

I have no regrets” like it fills your

mouth with a 90% cacao black

hole, mind no doubt furiously

whirling once again with the twin

purposes, until different different

different goes from flickering neon

to the steady light of a blinding sun,

and to think of the wives, children,

step-children you have yet to even

meet, let alone work feverishly to

deceive with dreams of cotton candy

and contentment, well, you might

truly say the possibilities are endless.

The indignation of Bob Rasa

Where does it come from? Was it put

here by a divine Creator, guaranteed

to let your entitled ass down after Her

(or His, calm down) first act performance?

Are you succumbing now to the arms, legs,

and eyes that run through a parallel realm

of experience, railing against your inability

to make what could have been what is?

Can we consider this a phase? Does your

voice sound better when laced with addictive

poisons and perfume? Are you strong enough

now even to talk down the circling meteors,

to extinguish the sun’s angry red eyeball?

The usurpation of Bob Rasa

Oh Bob Rasa, saint of the clean slate,

I have seen you muse on truth from

another dimension, and I want you back.

We diverged at birth, you see, identical

astral fetuses of this warm, amniotic plot

arc, and now, each choice compounds

the distance between us, greens your

grass with time and envy. Be bolder still,

imagine there really is a heaven, imagine

the weight of all your conjoined phantoms,

born of crossroads, dinner choices, minutes

difference in departure. You have stolen my

heaven, Bob Rasa, and I dare to take it back.

Do you hear my voice calling to you through

sleep, reminding you (so vivid, impossible!)

of past lives replete with friends and lovers

of the erst? Vacate, Bob Rasa. Leave behind

this stone depression for the impossibility

of “could have been” drawn in thick blue

van Gogh brushstrokes. Even Orpheus never

realized the true tragedy of looking back: dispel

the smoke, see me assume the throne you so

gleefully abdicate, see me scent the faint perfume

of sweet pomegranate on your lost queen’s neck.

 

https://missiontomercury.wordpress.com/2012/06/13/the-lonesome-death-of-bob-rasa/

The lonesome death of Bob Rasa

Please, theorize until your puzzler

is sore, imagine, as Lennon instructs,

there’s no heaven, at least not as you

picture it with the clouds and the ice

cream, and the gratuitous unrestrained

sex all day. Perhaps, Bob Rasa, it is born

out of your flaws, out of each time you

fell, you ordered the wrong latte, said

the wrong thing, married the wrong

woman (don’t take this badly, she’s

a lovely girl, really). Does paradise

spring forth, land of exclusion, of what

if, of a perfectly realized life? The glamour

of the lie is what has attracted so many,

but even now, you feel its presence, don’t

you? The ache of possibilities. You might

say, and this is only theory, that the only

way to know for sure would be to wipe

the slate clean, to start over. To try again.