Robert Anthony Gibbons
a treacherous art scene
“it was not mere business that brought me here, but obsession, something
tantamount to faith”(Julian Bell)
what brought me here in this overworked ground
not revelation or to pay tribute to another one
but consequence, not condolence, nor circumstantial
but permanence, as they roll his body down
through Brooklyn, we can’t gentrify death
we can’t qualify a human soul being snatched
behind the black curtain, the impale
of the pallbearer who has to consume this act
this mourning in three stanzas, the clack and chatter
of the old subway line, the water baptism
of Emmett Till; we know as the sweeper knew
placing the blood of Martin Luther King in a mason jar
preserve him for sainthood, those left behind
that care not to read the fine print of the constitution
to be able to make the same mistakes;
to reap the same breath of liberty
and we must speak from the pulpits
of our abolition, this not an act but volition
a riot, a cause of insurrection for Nat Turner
a death to name a only a few listed
rather jump ship into the water
than live through another middle passage
the smell of piss and filth of the manacle
the choke hold of inequality, and his body
brings consequence, bring old suspicion
whispers behind the flying buttress, that
will not be heard because no one cared
to listen and his body left over like
damaged good before expiration date
before resurrection, before the ascension
all that is left is martyrdom, his body
will not afford the burial of a free land
but a concentration camp, call him holocaust
a wrought iron separation on the other side
of Monticello, unfree by the necessary clause
a reject of a system internal, his evidence
enormous to archive it, accession him
in time capsule under lynching bee
and mob violence, but not free, but a trump
of the trope
not a trust to keep, not a vouchsafe of blather
but it is content rich and I am not an art critic
but critical, the turns becomes sardonic
and lyrical, keep this alarm intimate
the concern can’t be removed
but it is as dense by definition
of cultural history as authentic as
our own.
Robert Anthony Gibbons, a native Floridian, came to New York City in 2007. His first book, Close to the Tree, was published by Three Rooms Press (2012). His chapbook, Flight, was published by Poets Wear Prada (2019), You Almost Home, boy, published by Harlequin Creatures (2019), and his collaboration with Brooklyn based visual artist, Amy Williams, “Some Little Words”, was published by 440 Gallery, Brooklyn (2021). Robert has also been published in over thirty literary magazines and in several notable anthologies including Peregrine, Expound, Promethean, Turtle Island Quarterly, Killer Whale, and Suisun Valley Review, and the Bronx Memoir Project: Vol. 2, published by the Bronx Council of the Arts.
Robers is an Obsidian Fellow (2020), Cave Canem Fellow (2019-2021) and has received residencies from the Norman Mailer Foundation (2017) and the DISQUIET International Literary Program (2018). In 2018 he completed his MFA at City College.
