Turpentine Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Mad faceless men echoing from the Australian
Pines,
Sniffing their brillow pads of turpentine:
When I go to defecate in their woods-
They yell at me draped in blue gills and palmettos,
They at first they say get out, young boy-
And a loose airplane wheel drops on their head,
And then they have a change of attitude,
And they say come in, my boy, for you are looking real
When before you were looking like green shirted
Thievery:
For we come from the stars and places and planets
Which have unfamiliar drapery unto this Technicolor
Landscaping,
And young mothers, and two and a half pets:
It is all strange to us- We have a gun, but she doesn’t
Know what she means to us-
And their pants hang like a suffocated flag, blue over their
Smoldering fire:
They don’t have enough money to buy beer or cards:
Their faces look even better than mine,
And that is why they spend their entire day waylaid
Amidst empty banisters going nowhere in rooms of alligator
Furniture, butchering their freshwater mermaids,
Sniffing turpentine.