The Eyes Of Dr Tj Eckleburg Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Here in the cuneiform of light,
A privilege of the drunken window
I recline beneath on a Monday's afternoon-

I am in a pilgrim's crèche in the green arms of
A mother they have planted to beautify the growing highways
That bring so many things back and forth

So that we can survive according to a social hierarchy
Deemed worthy by god,
But which Satan cannot identity:

Watched over by
The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburge
I think of a woman who is not my wife,
Whose soul is lost in the mountains of Guerrero
With the fading carcasses of the butterflies,
The detritus of the carnivals

Vomit of the waves,
Ejaculate of the centaurs and the mermaids-

The pretty favors of the things we over spend on holidays-
Underneath the tents in between the runnels of Miami-
The airplanes go leaping, long and forked-tongued over this-
Our pornography,

Forgotten as the cicada sheds its skin upon the bark
Of the pine,
As the knight leaves his carcass to this dragon,
As the mother leaves her car for the supermarket:

Her children have made a merry-go-round of a tree
Dangerously deep in the woods,

As the pretty favors lead us around all day.
The night rejoins us with the shadows. The airplanes
Touching down, cool their wings upon the earth-
The lovers pick up stars in baskets, their unabashed nudity
Approaching the horizon

Where her unanswered favors try to remake themselves,
Such impotent protestations keep them separated from
The out of door heavens.