Robert Milby, of Florida, NY is Calling All Poets' Secretary, A co-host, and recruiter. He has been reading his work in public since early 1995.
He has supported and read with CAPs since the series first reading in March, 1999 with Founder, Jim Eve.
Milby has 2 books, 6 chapbooks published since 1998, 2 books since 2007, and two cds of his poems since 2004.
He hosts 4 other poetry readings in the Hudson Valley, including the 3rd Saturdays poetry series at Mudd Puddle Cafe, down Main Street in New Paltz from The Roost.
Each October, since 2003, Milby and HV Performance Artist Carl Welden, who plays Theremin, haunt the Hudson Valley as Theremin Ghosts! an unusual poetry and sound performance.
Sunrise through the Silver Maples,
caught by Rose of Sharon,
this late August morning.
Meditation on dark roast,
and Summer ghosts,
but the little piper chases
the final sibilant one from
my candle-charmed garret.
The long, searing trail
from July to September,
has grown shorter.
From my table of swooning thought,
I am called by the scarlet emissary,
directing me, not only to his joy at Sunrise,
but contentment that we are not yet clawed
by Winter's frostworks, from where
he and I have often conversed.
-Robert Milby
August 23, 2014
The book faire is a distraction.
Why would I leave an early
Summer morning of soft breezes
through my window;
gentle piano from the radio,
a Blue Jay's rescue from
sentimental memory;
the heavy burden of capturing
the plight of the charmed
and the damned—
rendering these hours of wealth
worthy of my attention,
with half of my life achieved,
to walk into a weekend carnival
of colour, food, and noise;
leaving money—earned from
my strange morning meditation,
for bound collections of ideas
scribed by other minds,
when I have hundreds
in my garret already?
The book faire is my destination.
-Robert Milby
July 2, 2016
I saw you born of fog, playing with your brother on the colonial carriage path,
Surrounding glacial pastures, in northern New Jersey.
Your pack barked and wailed, when the fire horn screamed,
As I sat at my campfire on haunted Schunnemunk Mountain.
I followed your paw prints in December snows of Black Rock Forest.
Coyote, suckle your pups at Summer filled teats.
Breathing poetry under dark Mountain Laurels.
A truck murdered you.
I stopped at your majestic torso—
a yelp of rich blood like a red vine from your open maw.
Dark blonde fur caressed by Lenape ghosts, beckoned me to halt my car.
I could not leave you to be spread into ruin by oblivion's emissaries.
I grasped back legs, and pulled your sleeping body from damp and dumb pavement—
the sacrificial altar of commerce.
Petroleum death barges sailed by.
I dragged you, like a sack of wet sand; a fallen rebel against an urban incursion.
The humid day called witness clouds for ghosts to clean your blood
with hail and cool July rain.
They chased you down in Central Park.
It took days but they found you:
cast a net over your feral hide, stabbed you with needles,
and made your green fire smolder and smoke like addicts in alleyways, on stoops,
and Victorian tenements.
They captured you, ensnared you with poisoned meat
and rifle dirges like bold Grey Wolf and Mountain Lion.
Their metal traps mock your fangs; chew your fur, flesh, and muscle.
People turn on their own packs—they kill what they do not comprehend.
Coyote deity, your rut will be written in soil tales; on lichen parchment;
Spring fog, Summer oak stands, when your clan is gone.
Yet, who shall write of the human drama of blood:
Babies born of starving mothers and warfare fathers;
skeleton houses and twisted automobiles?
Humans prepare for war and make babies.
They slaughter the forest, and whelp babies.
They poison the water, and drop babies.
They pave over farmland and starve children.
Your spirit walks in Summer-mad marshland, searching for your mate and pups,
Crossing roads in bog mists, and scavenging like humans.
-Robert Milby
July 24, 2006
