rob hendricks
Bio:
Born in 1978 in Phoenix, Rob Hendricks is the author of OPPRESSORFACE (Fourteen Hills, 2019). He edits OmniVerse, an online journal of Omnidawn Publishing. He lives in Oakland.
The Organ Stops
The organ stops in the case of this room
Or up or down stairs
Some of others speak of in the leafy branches
To make our visit in the lane
Lazy as the summer trees
Birdshit Rectitude
You remind me of
this mausoleum warden
once when I
was a swinging
single, yeah,
I dated him.
Don’t say so
just for anyone.
He was such a
good guy about
not communicating.
Pretty Destroying
What’s funny to you? Opposites? Things gone wrong?
Windmill frustration lets the little birdies perch
unless you’re after something specific. Or dirtr.
So she parades him around. April can never be found at first.
That’s why we flinched when the carousel turned slowly
past the place we were standing, place that modifies the spirit’s age.
That’s why the whole family was on tour that season,
sitting in a pleasure dome. A country home. In jammies,
eating appetizers. Among mourners with country manners.
Sashes were tied tight enough alright. In plaids, in argyles
you seemed like a candidate for this sort of coercion,
which one day may lead to complimentary dealings and proceedings.
Though you deeded the title to me, wheelbarrows in that region
were curious what they might be able to catch (or contract).
Thus death reflects another death in its rearview, its own
reflection of permissive fun. Needles need not apply.
Whizbang
Are you comfortable in plastic
You required it to be stated in the subjunctive
and know mouthing solutions brings nothing but pity
and piety into deforested equations
so you surely also recognize havoc
with its devastating secret of its own
Comfortable in plastic
my mother goes by “Sunshine” when she’s on corners
consuming customables, coping and digesting now and again
a revelation ironically
as routes we travel drown to see our family crawl apart
Every pagan gets
atmosphere with solutions we
Derided, desired
so little were the words you used to persuade me
not just incidental
You’ve a secret to reveal to the old-fashioned tumult
Are you keeping us in sugar
The mariposa opened its doors to a general
public that proclaims the criminally ill and ungainly
The hurdy gurdy generated another ilex
To hang across the altar so new surgical procedures
May admonish us to fantasize passionate
kissing of one of our friends or coworkers
I really thought our relationship was built on thrust
Until I learned about the dream you had
last night and every night
You must tell her though you love her
there is another her you love more
Dang it, don’t embarrass her
Just hope to get to keep the one you want
the distant unflavorable past
peanuts clusters and sesame calls
Sad Magic Constable Pukeshack
All these lovely, lonely nights
we thought you’d forsaken,
so sterile but so nice, in their own way
proctoring freedom from torque anew.
The power company turned off our lights.
Though pitched in full conflict with other sprites,
we were on the same page that winter I knew.
We got the structure figured for a shorter day,
a happier hour, when spalls will be ousted or broken,
a monster mash in the off-season.
Weasels will read me my rights.
Fearless Clarification
Slime has virtue. That’s what I wanted to say, virtue in yourself and in others.
Slime teaches us to be pixie, gleams with heuristics.
So you should love it and use it to full advantage.
The truth is inscribed as slime and enlists us to sidle up alongside it,
to consider welsh corgis and “elastic” tin pans with it. Slime
is the truth, is a warm fuzzy thing, is blessing us with magical inventions again.
Rob Hendricks
(he/him) fb | tw | ig | li
Editor of OmniVerse
📚 #OPPRESSORFACE (Fourteen Hills, 2019)