The Sign Of The Albatross Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Down- I think of hanging- the cool creep
Of grinning theatres grandmothers and cancer knows:
The organs play, the wolf is waking up;
And I think if I go, my poesy will save me,
And I laugh- The crow’s eyes glint like evil marbles:
Not a thing I have done is of my choosing,
Just like the naked girls down in the pool after midnight,
The thieves scouring the barbershops on their bicycles:
And not a word of it will save me;
She is looking away, smiling at a man she can be proud
To believe in; I have become a crooked jag of smarmy rust,
Without oil or singing girls who through happenstance
Abound bucolic with their dogs:
And I really want to swing, and know the words won’t
Save me- so much ink the squid shoots against the barb,
But ends up under the knowing glint of the nearest
Insincerity, just like another god, wild-eyed no one had the
Care to believe in as they heaped him to their load,
Covering in tentacles of their good deeds,
Perfumed with the sign of the albatross.