Heroes Without Any Joy Poem by Robert Rorabeck

This is the world of the fjord and I am not
Your hero—your ancestors have been beaten down-
Whatever rose there is, is destroyed unto the carpet
Of the vagabonds—the future of the spacecraft is
There's, and the space of their wishing wells is null and void—
And I suppose that you loved me once upon a time
To the silence of the pecking song birds:
But while I dozed in the student parking lot, you were
Making love upon love, studying yourselves in mirrors,
And learning how to awaken later and later until
You perhaps didn't have to awaken at all—
And with your eyes closed could enjoy all of those
Great dragons who pretended to prey upon
My world that was so chalk full of heroes without any joy.