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Robin Helweg-Larsen
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the poet
Anglo-Danish but raised in the Bahamas, Robin Helweg-Larsen was educated in Jamaica and at Stowe. He's lived and worked in the Bahamas, Denmark, Canada, Australia and the USA. Robin has had more than 400 poems published in various literary journals, including the Alabama Literary Review, Allegro, Ambit and Amsterdam Quarterly. His chapbook, Calling the Poem – on the art of summoning and working with 'The Muse' – is available to read online.
the poems
Camelot at Dusk
From under low clouds spreading from the south
The red sun drops slow to night’s waiting mouth.
Rush lamps are lit; the guards changed on the walls;
Supper will not be served in the Great Halls
With Arthur still away. Each in their room,
The members of the Court leave books or loom
To say their Vespers in the encroaching gloom.
Lancelot, up in his tower,
Sees the sunset storm clouds glower,
Feels his blood’s full tidal power,
Knows he has to go.
In her bower, Gwenivere
Puts a ruby to her ear,
Brushes firelight through her hair,
Feels her heartbeat grow.
Guard, guard, watch well:
For the daylight thickens
And the low cloud blackens
And the hot heart quickens
To rebel.
From his tower, caring not
For consequences, Lancelot
Crosses courts of Camelot,
Pitying his King.
In her bower, Gwenivere
Feels his presence coming near,
Waits for footfalls on the stair,
Lets her will take wing.
Guard, guard, watch well:
If attention slackens
When the deep bond beckons,
Evil knows Pendragon’s
In its spell.
And as the storm clouds, rubbing out the stars,
Deafened the castle and carved lightning scars,
Drenched Arthur rode for flash-lit Camelot
Where he, by Queen and Knight, was all forgot.
Old Sailors
Two tars talked of sealing and sailing; one said with a sigh
'Remember gulls wheeling and wailing, we wondering why,
and noting bells pealing, sun paling — it vanished like pie!
And then the boat heeling, sky hailing, the wind getting high,
and that drunken Yank reeling to railing and retching his rye,
John missing his Darjeeling jailing, and calling for chai?
While we battened, all kneeling and nailing, the hurricane nigh,
and me longing for Ealing, and ailing?' His mate said 'Aye-aye;
I could stand the odd stealing, food staling, not fit for a sty,
and forget any feeling of failing, too vast to defy –
home-leaving your peeling-paint paling too far to espy –
all because of the healing friend-hailing, the hello! and hi!
and, with the gulls squealing, quick-scaling the mast to the sky.'
This Ape I Am
Under our armoured mirrors of the mind
where eyes watch eyes, trying to pierce disguise,
an ape, incapable of doubt, looks out,
insists this world he sees is trees, and tries
to find the scenes his genes have predefined.
This ape I am
who counts 'One, two, more, more'
has lived three million years in empty lands
where all the members of the roving bands
he’s ever met have totalled some ten score;
so all these hundred thousands in the street
with voided eyes and quick avoiding feet
must be the mere two hundred known before.
This ape I am
believes they know me too.
I’m free to stare, smile, challenge, talk to you.
This ape I am
thinks every female mine,
at least as much as any other male’s;
if she’s with someone else, she can defect –
her choice, and she becomes mine to protect;
just as each child must be kept safe and hale
for no one knows but that it could be mine.
This ape I am
feels drugged, ecstatic, doped,
hallucination-torn, kaleidoscoped,
that Earth’s two hundred people includes swirls
of limitless and ever-varied girls.
This ape I am
does not look at myself
doesn’t know about mirrors, lack of health,
doesn’t know fear of death, only of cold;
mirrorless can’t be ugly, can’t be old.
Publishing credits
Camelot at Dusk: The HyperTexts (2015)
Old Sailors: Snakeskin (No. 146)
This Ape I Am: Better Than Starbucks (Vol. II, No. X)