Mystical Tarot Realms
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Pelican Patrol
UNBALANCED
Part 1
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Nothing would stay put in those heaves.
They stabbed and stuck, with spiny gills,
needle-like teeth--sharp fins shearing
through burlap--I wanted to murder
them there. Lingcod gorged
on snapper even in my sack,
tails protruding
from insatiable maws,
heads stuck deep
in dead throats--and me,
clinging to the railing--
while the deckhand chuckled
and the whole world rolled--
so unbalanced--
I couldn't even leap into the waves.
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Part 2
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He held up a bait-fish, the size of smelt,
showing how to hook behind the skull so the target
would stay alive and jerk around enough to attract
bigger fish. "They don't feel nothin',"
he sneered. I grabbed one from the bait pool
and carefully slid the hook behind the skull
as my victim squirmed. The bait released
a faint, shrill scream as the barb entered
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its brain. As I tossed my line into the sea,
the deckhand announced, "I figured that two out here
today wouldn't last." Then he chortled
that he'd been wrong about one, the other
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curled up half-dead on a cot in the cabin.
"Know what? Never been wrong before!"
he grinned as he squinted at me. My Dad
ignored him. Suddenly a greenhorn reeled
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in a shark. The deckhand pulled a gun and blasted
it twice in the head, but it kept flopping around,
so he heaved it over the side. A guy who kept
drinking beer and barfing over the railing
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hooked a seagull, and the deckhand smirked
as the bird hovered behind the ship like a kite. Then
the deckhand saw me staring at a scar on his forehead.
"See this? I leaned over to pat a little girl
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on the head, and she pulled out a gun
and shot me, but I'm as hard-headed
as a shark. When I woke up, I asked
what happened to her, and my buddy
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told me they shot her. Why did they do that?
She was only five or six years old! She was already
a killer, he said. She'd do the same
to the next soldier. You know what
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was worse? Some yippie rushed up to me
and spit in my face in the airport after
I made it home. They say the war's
almost over, but I say it'll be over the day
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fish stop feasting on each other."
He pulled open a burlap bag, where
a lingcod had choked on red snapper.
Then he winked and howled with laughter.
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​All poems, stories, illustrations, and music Copyright © 2024 by Jim Robbins.
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Pounding Stone at the Confluence of Big Creek and the Kings River in a Drought Year
NO PROOF
I tossed a large rock
Into a lush backwash
From a high ledge,
The splash
Pushing striders,
Lighter than water,
Out of their refuge.
In a moment, they
Returned, seemingly
Unperturbed
By the explosion,
The rocks bigger, my fervor
Ever greater as I kept
Missing the mark.
The striders finally
Vanished, all
At once, and I felt
Mean for ruining
An ancient, pristine order.
I climbed back down
The cliff, hoping
The striders would return.
As I stepped out
Onto slippery stones,
A black snake
Slithered toward me
On top of the water,
Its body suddenly
Whipping around rocks,
Quick as a dipper.
I swayed slightly,
Curious, incredulous,
And in seconds the snake
Lunged at my chest.
As it flew toward me,
I held up my hand,
The snake's fangs
Hitting a flat palm;
It tumbled back
Into the river and slid off,
Surprised that it had not
Hooked into soft flesh,
Then between stones
It vanished
As liquid as ripples,
Leaving me unable to prove
That I had been attacked
By a fierce guardian
Of the river....
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All poems, stories, illustrations, and music Copyright © 2024 by Jim Robbins.
Toad in the Roots
BACKYARD BASEBALL
One of us poised near tree roots, grasping
a home-made ball of mushy wet paper wrapped
in rubber bands, the other waving a broken
broom handle in front of the shed door.
The ball flew as fast as thought
from mound to shed, and both of us
connected four or five times, whacking
the ball over the leafed-out fruitless mulberry
to plop in the neighbor's yard. Like
super-stars in a world series game,
for an afternoon we were sometimes
completely focused, clearly reading
the opposition. Then Dad died,
and my brother moved away. The tree
rotted from within, a stump where
two toads made their home
in the hollow roots, a huge beehive
dangling from the eaves of the shed,
the house finally abandoned.
In the shed thick with webs,
I found the broom handle
and stepped up to the plate. As
I swung the bat, I recalled how
my brother had smacked the ball
so sweetly that it had sailed high over
the tree, over the fence,
and had kept flying to where
we could never find it again.
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All poems, stories, illustrations, and music Copyright © 2024 by Jim Robbins.
The San Joaquin River Gorge
BATTLING CURRENTS
Immersing myself in the upper San Joaquin River,
I flowed with the current, following
my brother to a rock wall
on the other side. Suddenly I could see
a large group of nudists around the bend,
lounging on a cliff, one
woman squatting, all alone.
I stared, unable to make out
her features. My brother suddenly
plunged back against the current, thrashing
until he reached the other shore. I remained,
gawking at naked men, one of whom
stumbled closer and gazed down at me
accusingly. I edged closer
to the strong, middle current,
suddenly sensing that the swift water
might pin me to the rock wall
or sweep me down river if I slid out
a tiny bit farther. Suddenly
my overwhelming desire to see,
for the first time, a real naked woman
vanished. I shouted to my brother,
two years older and stronger, but he
was already gone or wouldn't answer.
As I inched along the slick rock, away
from the main current, back to a safer point
(where I could not climb out), I cursed him
over and over. Exhausted, nearly frozen,
with my last ounce of willpower, I flailed
through the water--so wildly it probably
looked like I was trying to beat the river
to death--but I made it back to shore.
Emerging from the water, I no longer thought
that anyone intended to harm me,
only that currents can be so powerful
that they can drown you.
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All poems, stories, illustrations, and music Copyright © 2024 by Jim Robbins.