Well neither do I, but I’m doing it anyway. See that’s what you gotta do sometimes. Do it anyway and sometimes you end up in a shitty heartbreak hotel being served divorce papers by dwarfs in clown suits, while 80’s rock ballads are sung by Scott Baio look-alikes.
And sometimes you weave pain like Rumpelstiltskin. Sometimes you hide away for 15 years only peaking your head out to watch children become adults or read some poetry. You spend the rest of your time reading old pulp fiction and comics while Buffy the Vampire Slayer plays on repeat in the background.
Well that’s what you do if you’re Rob Geisen anyway. Raised on a steady diet of glam rock, Hunter S. Thompson, and Ted Berrigan, his dulcet tones and pop referenced lyrics have continually found their way into the world for over 20 years, and thank fuck for that! It has influenced and inspired countless, myself included, and the world is better for it.
I remember it! I was there, in that once upon a time, time. I helped him and he helped me. And we both ended up with Helen like tragedies in the end. I traveled the country and then the world to shake off those demons. He stayed right there with them and wrote.
Now his most recent book I Don’t Think This is Going to Help published by Boulder Poetry Scene has just arrived on these distant shores, and it’s already got dog’s ears. Every time I open it I am reminded that Jonathan Montgomery was right about him. He is the greatest living poet and for exactly the reasons he expounded upon so long ago.
Yes, Helen fucked him six ways from Sunday and yes the world is a fucked place and yes sometimes success IS just closing the door behind you without screaming. But while this may crush some or at least grind them down to a dull nub. It hasn’t stopped Rob. The guy’s got heart – broken as it may be.
Where do I start? How about the underlying truth of the matter?
From We All Break like papermache switchblades jerked inside the unemployable carcass of Crayola-riddled wax and warm spaghetti
And we do from time to time. And what is “the unemployable carcass/of Crayola-riddled wax and warm spaghetti”?
Maybe it’s the way crayons and youth get dragged into Madame Tussauds pop culture museum for a good time only to get spaghettified.
Maybe it’s going over the event horizon, becoming mysterious, amazing, and tragic.
Maybe it’s the juxtaposition of image or the subtle play of consonance and assonance.
Who knows, but it hits in typical Geisen fashion. And Rob’s poetry is filled with this type of juxtaposed wordsmithery. It makes the sadness digestible. And isn’t that what art is meant to do. Sprout daisies in concrete and roses from detritus.
And it’s so fucking true that we all break from time to time. The art of life is how we learn to live and harness those breaks. Make glorious scars and memories that are even sweeter for the sadness they hold.
From My Foot Fell Asleep and It’s Having Those Dreams my foot fell asleep and it's having those dreams again, where we alphabetized all our typos and did sex stuff in front of them until the correct spellings came out
For me, there’s Ginsberg, Thompson, Bukowski, and there’s Geisen. I’ve read Rob’s work for nearly 20 years and it’s always been phenomenal. He has a way of grabbing you by the balls or nipples or heart or whatever your softest tenderest bits are and twisting just hard enough for you to ask for more.
Yes, his poetry is not for everyone (even though it should be), I mean you have to allow for taste, but it has always been unflinching, inclusive, approachable, and completely unapologetically him, which is so very rarely seen these days.
And because he can be that, I know that I can be that – unapologetically myself. It improves my possibilities, which improves my writing, which, in turn, improves my understanding of this jumbled marble that I am being upon.
And the man is like a hoover for words. The classics, comics, poetry, pop culture; it all gets swept up and reconstituted through his particular lens. We’re poets. That’s what we do. Some of us just do it better than others.
There’s: “Things I have in Common with Jake Gyllenhaal According to Taylor Swift.” There’s: “The Cookie Monster Vs. Billy Zane.” There’s even a passable portrait of Johnny Depp to lighten the mood. And it’s not just shallow reference or name dropping. He understands why Jake and Taylor had to end in tragedy. He knows Cookie Monster’s secret. The tapestry of these poems is complex. Maybe it’s all the Herzog he watches, but these poetic vignettes touch something almost untouchable.
We see it well in
From Love Is A Cat From New Jersey From their booth beside a window inside an overly priced pub on a terraformed moon, post-the- fate of what’s been left behind of humanity, the Earth looks like a dead Pizza Hut. In like 1980’s indoor dining, out like a pick-up- and-go-only miserable express. Multiverse Johnson accidentally orders a $24 gin and tonic. Erotobot 4200 orders $18 pretzel bites on purpose. Robots don't eat pretzels, that's what Multiverse Johnson says. My left tread’s been off since we left 11 ½ Minute Abs’ place. The cheddar wildfire dipping fondue that comes with the dough looked like the closest thing on the menu to a hacky this’ll-work-until- I-get-home-again improvised-under-pressure tread lube. In like a boa constrictor, out like a zoo. Multiverse takes an $8 sip of his drink. I feel like I’ve been punched by a broken shower, he says, as The Robot rubs rapidly coagulated cheese into the bottom of his synthetic bulldozer shaped foot, beneath which The Moon finds itself dreaming in stock footage. An airplane landing in 1970’s daylight. An alligator slipping into a swamp with the sound off. A black and white town. Out like a VCR, in like the invention of night…
And on it goes. Like some surrealist movie. Like a Bukowski version of the Twilight Zone starring William Shatner, a bottle of cognac, and a case of suggestive cigars circling the landing strip of love. Only better.
I remember a conversation I had with Helen (yes that’s THE Helen) one time back in the Penny Lane, Burnt Toast days, talking about Rob’s work.
I remember he was writing a lot about his Johnson at that point of time. That and her breasts. And people loved hearing about how his cock would do handstands and cartwheels and drive to Taco Bell at 2 AM to get a snack pack for her nipples, but I was convinced they were missing the real genius.
I said something along the lines of – The particular subject in any one of Rob’s poems was like Victorian window dressings. Beautiful, funny, touching, tragic and ornate. The real beauty was how Rob was unapologetically himself and how he conveyed that. The way he understood the assignment of poetry. I feel his breath. I hear his ear. I am inspired because somehow it shows me what is possible before it is possible.
Now, 15 or more years later this still stands true. You can read I Don’t Think This is Going to Help and marvel that this guy hasn’t gotten over Helen yet. You can look at some of these poems and feel the desperation and depression and wonder for his sanity and mental health, but that is just window dressing. Behind the veneer of sadness there is the entirety of the human experience spun with unique bluster and pop creativity.
In the end, how does one get over something traumatic? Maybe there is no way. Maybe you just learn to live with it. But what if you could make something perfect or near perfect or a damn sure bit better than the traumatic thing, from the memory of the thing?
From The State of Soda Machines in a Town Without Helen “That was everything I’ve got! you scream at the machine, Give me something back!” Rob Geisen, AKA Get in the car, Helen AKA Gitch has again made something that lands square out of his trauma. And because of him, my trauma weighs less, even if it’s not the same. Because of him I know that I am not alone in living with pain and regret and loss. So I can Live with them.
He’s right in the end. This isn’t going to help, but I do not know if I really want it to. I know it’s selfish and I should be wishing this mountain of a man sunflowers and daisies, peace and prosperity, all the other “good” things, but I don’t think that would help either.
So I’m writing this instead. And I’ll read these poems again and again and again. And remember that the fat lady ain’t singing yet, so all the feels I feel while feeling this book are part of what makes life grand. Thanks again Rob.
Yours,
Olatundji Akpo-Sani
Olatundji Akpo-Sani usta live and make poetry in Boulder for a long time. He was the co-host of the Burnt Toast-NoName weekly open mic series, co-editor of Baobob Tree Press, and was a general there-whenever-you-need-him artistic ally. One day he had an epiphany to wander the globe seeking adventures and some kinduv elusive spiritual freedom. Now he’s in Australia, where we assume he lives with the crocodiles, carries a big knife, and has added perspective from living 14 hours into the future. Oh yeah and here’s what we wrote about his latest chapbook.
Boulder Poetry Scene 