Two Poems by Robert S. King

Late Riser

Inside the irons of gravity
and long, heavy orbits of my years,
I bow my back upward
like a lost horizon, push up
and point my arms skyward
until they lock in place, shape
my hands into birds with open
mouths above me, where earth's
centrifugal spin no longer pushes
down, where gravity snaps and wings
sprout from shoulder blades.
Like a jet I fall upward higher
and higher at last, the dust of me
writing my name across the sky.



Rising Light

In the core of a sleeping seed
is a dream that wants to grow.

A blanket of dirt warms the will
that softly turns the soil to sky.

Even those too deeply buried
see flashes in the dark depths.

The inner eye shines
always toward the morning.




Robert S. King, a native Georgian, now lives in Lexington, Kentucky.  His poems have appeared in hundreds of magazines, including Atlanta Review, California Quarterly, Chariton Review, Hollins Critic, Kenyon Review, Main Street Rag, Midwest Quarterly, Negative Capability, Southern Poetry Review, and Spoon River Poetry Review.  He has published four chapbooks (When Stars Fall Down as Snow, Garland Press 1976; Dream of the Electric Eel, Wolfsong Publications 1982; The Traveller's Tale, Whistle Press 1998; and Diary of the Last Person on Earth, Sybaritic Press, 2014).  His full-length collections are The Hunted River and The Gravedigger's Roots, both in 2nd editions from FutureCycle Press 2012; One Man's Profit from Sweatshoppe Publications 2013; and Developing a Photograph of God, Glass Lyre Press, 2014.  Robert's work has been nominated several times for the Pushcart Prize and the Best of the Net award.  He currently is editor-in-chief of Kentucky Review.  His personal website is www.rskingpoet.com