Concerning Our Great Divide Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Mark Twain’s a great genius-
Spilling of boys, has fine numbers and
The arithmetic of condors,
A Midwestern steam captain, pipe teeth-in-clenched,
Brow molded by a draftsman trough,
A Zoroastrian of the fable fields;
Look at how he goes, skipping the wake after
Other steamboats have exploded,
Given up on the race, and his younger brother
Has died, sacrificing to Twain his innocence,
Giving inspiration and zeal;
And all the better man has to say for it is that he
Is but a Machine inspired by his master’s impatience,
The same as a ant or dog or pachyderm;
And underneath his circus comet dare deviling still,
Skipping a sand dollar over the earth’s astonished
Atmosphere,
I am but a small boy farting out words, like messy
Fingerprints, while Death is handling the lions, laughing
From the caracoles of gasoline fires, as he will have his thrill.
Flustered by Clemen’s victory, the Great Rectifier will
Glut with the flies, return my mottles into the reveal ivories
Of a discarded bouquet, if I can’t bight my tongue tighter,
And figure out more of the mysteries of lackadaisical genius
Of the bathhouse and smoke-hall,
If I can’t learn how to simply spell before its all over-
Because this isn’t kindergarten- Twain is palavering with
Satan in the garden, those two great despoilers don’t care
An inch for this anonymous roil, and Death their faithful
Hound, excited by the broiling elements of the hoary field,
Will have a handy soul for lunch, a basket of pullulated sweet
Meats to enjoy the show, regardless of Sunday School morals;
I can see my mother and all the ladies calling in their
Skirts from across the canal, but it is the only vision
The world has afforded to me, and there is nothing of it
To which the world now recalls.