Vox Populi
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Robert Walicki: Asleep
Another knuckle white morning,
in a neighborhood of slammed doors,
the salt covered cars and trucks in a haze,
saying prayers to the God of paychecks and Friday afternoons.
Whatever dream I had last night, lost
in the fuselage of truck growl
and turn over, smoking up the road
with the sounds of my leaving.
I’m sorry I didn’t wake you
with a kiss. I just wanted you to sleep a little longer.
Don’t hate me for wanting
the simple again–
A job at the service desk,
red smock, a wall of cigarette cartons, scratch offs,
a basket of lollipops for the kids
in the same place I burned the rest of my childhood down
in the post apocalypse of high-school,
slicing ham for the great corporate grocery stores of America.
On breaks, I bummed cigarettes
next to the dumpster and kicked rocks into the silt stream.
I wonder now if the train tracks
I passed stitched the same line between here and Verona
our first apartment with the endless blues of its 3ams.
when the throat cries of Norfolk Southern found me
astonished, woke. You, asleep.
I said you’re asleep. How could you sleep through this?
~~~
Robert Walicki’s publications include Black Angels (Seven Gallery, 2019). He lives and works in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Copyright 2025 Robert Walicki
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One of my favourite poets, whom I always read with admiration. There is so much love infused with the grittiness of life in his poems. They are anchored in living and in paying attention to small details that so many of us don’t see. Thank you, once again!
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Thanks, David!
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so I just did a little Robert Walicki Anthology, I somehow missed earlier when origionally posted, bounced here by James Crews and I wonder about Poets I haven’t read, whose orderings of heart and thought in this world could be so easily not seen nor known. I think he is fabulous, a vessel as full of artistic realization as he is in the knowledge of a world that either destroys the poeric, or at best, sets it aside, out of the way. He is one of the accursed ones, living in both worlds, you can tell this from his fateful lines that shed light.
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I meant to say “poetic” line 10.
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Yes, I love Walicki’s work. He’s a plumber and his poetry has a practical roundedness that keeps us rooted in the world.
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So many great lines in this poem, as in:
“the same place I burned the rest of my childhood down
in the post apocalypse of high-school”
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This poem had me from its memorable first line “Another knuckle white morning” — wow! And that is followed so many amazing turns of phrase, and such a powerful and surprising ending! Bravo!
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Thank you all so much for your kind words.
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Robert: I’m late in “opening” your poem, your life this morning. Like an errant wife I overslept, and feel guilty, seeing all I missed as morning waxed on. Your’s is a triumphant entrance into this dailiness of a poem in which I’m grateful to have at last wakened!
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Absolutely superb poem. I love the uneven lines, especially the long lines at the ends of stanzas. I love the message, the yearning, the lyricism of this one. Bravo, Bob.
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A strong poem about a chunk of the world many poets have not written of. Though the 3 am blues may wend their way through all of our lives eventually.
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I can see and feel it all. Even the kiss not given.
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Such a strong tone, such powerful imagery in this moment frozen in time — and, oh, those 3AM blues…
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The 3 am blues caught me, too.
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Thanks, Laure-Anne. I too admire this poem for its elegiac tone and evocative imagery.
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