Poetry From A Forgotten Avenue Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Every night I leave the sad hotel
Where the tourists all are snoring;
Bellies stuffed with buttered lobsters,
Toddlers curled on the bulbous laps
Like house cats,
Rising a storm, a nostril’s forest fire:
I wander along the canals, watch the
Tamed, teal waters where
Trinkets, wax lions float; There is
Not a single fish where I cry your name:
Too many words in one syllable,
The princess has removed her costume.
Arching, she turns tricks against the
Wall, her body a sorbet, the thief
With the tongue of a knife intrudes:
She moans another’s name down,
Flowers bud a pantheon, and things are painted
In a tidal blush,
Little children purr in dreams of Ferris wheels
Not far from cloudy sticks of cotton candy
And the little murder,

Each line a succession of oceanic breathing,
If the surf were to continue hypothetically over
The university, and the unions of rodeo clowns
Laid down in the grass where the blue ants
Are building sand castles for their queen:
I should awake, drooling upon the stony lip
Of my reflection,
Echoing the jewel-reeds, the extemporaneous
Flight of the dragonfly;
But it is too painful to read my own lines,
The failures of rusted amusement parks,
Ghost towns in Colorado basins:

Thus, you kiss his lips; your body
Arches like a bow, insouciant hunter,
And happenings proceed further away from
The abandoned rectory, where from the
Promises of doves have long since migrated,
Abandoning only the inconstant pain of this art,
Calling the apathetic winds, and my tears
Which feed the waterwheel’s steady work,
Grinding, grinding, flour from wheat,
Pearls from sand,
Poetry from a forgotten avenue.