Robert Rorabeck

Robert Rorabeck Poems

I want to fall on you like rain
upon a wildflower
Opening new reason from you
Scaring all the old bees away from
...

Little girls in little blonde curls
In reddish frilly messes
Eat their lunch alone,
Served by brunette waitresses
...

Well, it is raining, and the raindrops make
Furtive areolas in the puddles of muddy bellies,
And their mists are like nebulous shrouds,
And unfertilized thoughts of maidens dreaming of
...

With others old and gray,
Or not so old at all—Maybe they will
Mostly be fair haired and young,
If it should be a tragedy. Who knows?
...

Like an otter come out and into her own:
Outside of classes, and outside
The impenetrable bosque:
She is now selling fruit to speaking
...

Tired rooms in opulent boredom,
And today I drove through the Zuni nation:
Our tax dollars had bought for them a hash of
Repetitious houses,
...

Juliet:
I will be thy chased rose and take thy name.
My heart will continue drumming its love for you the same;
And though thy mother and father mean nothing to me—
...

Close set the stores and hide
The abdomen of my laziness. Feed chickenpox
To alligators,
And go outdoors, brown bagging liquor and fireworks.
...

Now the city has a studded nose,
Because the city is so pretty, and the city knows:
The city, she almost fooled me underneath the
Chicken sky- The city is so pretty,
...

I have seen you lying under the sky
Like the Great Victoria Desert of Australia,
Your body the milky smoothness of Oasis,
My eyes come to drink with the animals off
...

Recall her now
What the world does know
Fluctuating back and forth
Through the snow.
...

Away from the night
Everyone moves across the street
To be together, far from,
They are attracted to the light
...

Rain plinks the shingles of a house
Where I’d sure like to live;
Rain engorges too the ever, ever waves
Of the sea persuading the mangroves
...

The mad-eyed bloom of the
Fiery Russian poet
Incinerated by eternity’s fist
And fed to toy-sized sharks in the
...

Lets break into houses and make love-
Lets make fun of the teachers on their way into school-
Lets wake up early and play baseball in the dying
Park as the cicadas shed;
...

When will these new scars die-
They cannot possibly outlive me, the silent
Unmovable fantasies of a graveyard’s soul:
All the little jewels half remembered in her flesh;
...

So you’ve written poetry,
And have beautiful scars, like
Burns in the pie-crust of American:
And I’ll write your introduction,
...

The drink has my mind in a pickle where I don’t
Care;
It is easier looking at myself, and thinking on my dreams.
This is like being in the eye of a hurricane
...

We can split the atom,
And see the fetus of death-
We can throw rocks from the moon,
If we want to:
...

They passed away this time with the
Nearing of Spring; there were no more
Undiscovered lovers sleeping in the grottos,
In the fault-lines of continents,
...

Robert Rorabeck Biography

Sometimes with the one I love I fill myself with rage for fear I effuse unreturn'd love, But now I think there is no unreturn'd love, the pay is cer- tain one way or another, (I loved a certain person ardently and my love was not return'd. Yet out of that I have written these songs.) Walt Whitman *************************************************** I SHALL NOT CARE When I am dead and over me bright April Shakes out her rain-drenched hair, Though you should lean above me broken-hearted, I shall not care. I shall have peace, as leafy trees are peaceful When rain bends down the bough, And I shall be more silent and cold-hearted Than you are now. Sara Teasdale (1915) ************************************************ Success I think if you had loved me when I wanted; If I'd looked up one day, and seen your eyes, And found my wild sick blasphemous prayer granted, And your brown face, that's full of pity and wise, Flushed suddenly; the white godhead in new fear Intolerably so struggling, and so shamed; Most holy and far, if you'd come all too near, If earth had seen Earth's lordliest wild limbs tamed, Shaken, and trapped, and shivering, for MY touch - Myself should I have slain? or that foul you? But this the strange gods, who had given so much, To have seen and known you, this they might not do. One last shame's spared me, one black word's unspoken; And I'm alone; and you have not awoken. Rupert Brooke ************************************************ '' Look here; there's one thing in this world which isn't ever cheap. That's a coffin. There's one thing in this world which a person don't ever try to jew you down on. That's a coffin. There's one thing in this world which a person don't say - 'I'll look around a little, and if I find I can't do better I'll come back and take it.' That's a coffin. There's one thing in this world a person won't take in pine if he can go walnut; and won't take in walnut if he can go mahogany; and won't take in mahogany if he can go an iron casket with silver door-plate and bronze handles. That's a coffin. And there's one thing in this world you don't have to worry around after a person to get him to pay for. And that's a coffin. Undertaking? - why it's the dead-surest business in Christendom, and the nobbiest.'' Mark Twain's Life on The Mississippi 'No Protestant child exists who does not masturbate.' Mark Twain, Letters from the Earth ************************************************* The Meteorite Among the hills a meteorite Lies huge; and moss has overgrown, And wind and rain with touches light Made soft, the contours of the stone. Thus easily can Earth digest A cinder of sidereal fire, And make her translunary guest The native of an English shire. Nor is it strange these wanderers Find in her lap their fitting place, For every particle that's hers Came at the first from outer space. All that is Earth has once been sky; Down from the sun of old she came, Or from some star that travelled by Too close to his entangling flame. Hence, if belated drops yet fall From heaven, on these her plastic power Still works as once it worked on all The glad rush of the golden shower. CS Lewis, Time and Tide ********************************************* Danse Russe If I when my wife is sleeping and the baby and Kathleen are sleeping and the sun is a flame-white disc in silken mists above shining trees, — if I in my north room dance naked, grotesquely before my mirror waving my shirt round my head and singing softly to myself: 'I am lonely, lonely. I was born to be lonely, I am best so! ' If I admire my arms, my face, my shoulders, flanks, buttocks against the yellow drawn shades, — Who shall say I am not the happy genius of my household? William Carlos Williams ************************************************* The Sleeper In The Valley It is a green hollow where a stream gurgles, Crazily catching silver rags of itself on the grasses; Where the sun shines from the proud mountain: It is a little valley bubbling over with light. A young soldier, open-mouthed, bare-headed, With the nape of his neck bathed in cool blue cresses, Sleeps; he is stretched out on the grass, under the sky, Pale on his green bed where the light falls like rain. His feet in the yellow flags, he lies sleeping. Smiling as A sick child might smile, he is having a nap: Cradle him warmly, Nature: he is cold. No odour makes his nostrils quiver; He sleeps in the sun, his hand on his breast At peace. There are two red holes in his right side. Arthur Rimbaud October 1870 ************************************************* Arbole, Arbole Tree, tree dry and green. The girl with the pretty face is out picking olives. The wind, playboy of towers, grabs her around the waist. Four riders passed by on Andalusian ponies, with blue and green jackets and big, dark capes. 'Come to Cordoba, muchacha.' The girl won't listen to them. Three young bullfighters passed, slender in the waist, with jackets the color of oranges and swords of ancient silver. 'Come to Sevilla, muchacha.' The girl won't listen to them. When the afternoon had turned dark brown, with scattered light, a young man passed by, wearing roses and myrtle of the moon. 'Come to Granada, inuchacha.' And the girl won't listen to him. The girl with the pretty face keeps on picking olives with the grey arm of the wind wrapped around her waist. Tree, tree dry and green. Federico Garcia Lorca *********************************************** Meditations In An Emergency Am I to become profligate as if I were a blonde? Or religious as if I were French? Each time my heart is broken it makes me feel more adventurous (and how the same names keep recurring on that interminable list!) , but one of these days there'll be nothing left with which to venture forth. Why should I share you? Why don't you get rid of someone else for a change? I am the least difficult of men. All I want is boundless love. Even trees understand me! Good heavens, I lie under them, too, don't I? I'm just like a pile of leaves. However, I have never clogged myself with the praises of pastoral life, nor with nostalgia for an innocent past of perverted acts in pastures. No. One need never leave the confines of New York to get all the greenery one wishes-I can't even enjoy a blade of grass unless i know there's a subway handy, or a record store or some other sign that people do not totally _regret_ life. It is more important to affirm the least sincere; the clouds get enough attention as it is and even they continue to pass. Do they know what they're missing? Uh huh. My eyes are vague blue, like the sky, and change all the time; they are indiscriminate but fleeting, entirely specific and disloyal, so that no one trusts me. I am always looking away. Or again at something after it has given me up. It makes me restless and that makes me unhappy, but I cannot keep them still. If only i had grey, green, black, brown, yellow eyes; I would stay at home and do something. It's not that I'm curious. On the contrary, I am bored but it's my duty to be attentive, I am needed by things as the sky must be above the earth. And lately, so great has _their_ anxiety become, I can spare myself little sleep. Now there is only one man I like to kiss when he is unshaven. Heterosexuality! you are inexorably approaching. (How best discourage her?) St. Serapion, I wrap myself in the robes of your whiteness which is like midnight in Dostoevsky. How I am to become a legend, my dear? I've tried love, but that holds you in the bosom of another and I'm always springing forth from it like the lotus-the ecstasy of always bursting forth! (but one must not be distracted by it!) or like a hyacinth, 'to keep the filth of life away, ' yes, even in the heart, where the filth is pumped in and slanders and pollutes and determines. I will my will, though I may become famous for a mysterious vacancy in that department, that greenhouse. Destroy yourself, if you don't know! It is easy to be beautiful; it is difficult to appear so. I admire you, beloved, for the trap you've set. It's like a final chapter no one reads because the plot is over. 'Fanny Brown is run away-scampered off with a Cornet of Horse; I do love that little Minx, & hope She may be happy, tho' She has vexed me by this exploit a little too.-Poor silly Cecchina! or F: B: as we used to call her.-I wish She had a good Whipping and 10,000 pounds.'-Mrs. Thrale I've got to get out of here. I choose a piece of shawl and my dirtiest suntans. I'll be back, I'll re-emerge, defeated, from the valley; you don't want me to go where you go, so I go where you don't want me to. It's only afternoon, there's a lot ahead. There won't be any mail downstairs. Turning, I spit in the lock and the knob turns. Frank O'Hara ************************************************* The Little Girl's Dance DEDICATED TO LUCY BATES (Being a reminiscence of certain private theatricals.) Oh, cabaret dancer, I know a dancer, Whose eyes have not looked on the feasts that are vain. I know a dancer, I know a dancer, Whose soul has no bond with the beasts of the plain: Judith the dancer, Judith the dancer, With foot like the snow, and with step like the rain. Oh, thrice-painted dancer, vaudeville dancer, Sad in your spangles, with soul all astrain, I know a dancer, I know a dancer, Whose laughter and weeping are spiritual gain, A pure-hearted, high-hearted maiden evangel, With strength the dark cynical earth to disdain. Flowers of bright Broadway, you of the chorus, Who sing in the hope of forgetting your pain: I turn to a sister of Sainted Cecilia, A white bird escaping the earth's tangled skein: — The music of God is her innermost brooding, The whispering angels her footsteps sustain. Oh, proud Russian dancer: praise for your dancing. No clean human passion my rhyme would arraign. You dance for Apollo with noble devotion, A high cleansing revel to make the heart sane. But Judith the dancer prays to a spirit More white than Apollo and all of his train. I know a dancer who finds the true Godhead, Who bends o'er a brazier in Heaven's clear plain. I know a dancer, I know a dancer, Who lifts us toward peace, from this earth that is vain: Judith the dancer, Judith the dancer, With foot like the snow, and with step like the rain. Vachel Lindsay ********************************************** The Sick Muse My poor Muse, alas! what ails you today? Your hollow eyes are full of nocturnal visions; I see in turn reflected on your face Horror and madness, cold and taciturn. Have the green succubus, the rosy elf, Poured out for you love and fear from their urns? Has the hand of Nightmare, cruel and despotic, Plunged you to the bottom of some weird Minturnae? I would that your bosom, fragrant with health, Were constantly the dwelling place of noble thoughts, And that your Christian blood would flow in rhythmic waves Like the measured sounds of ancient verse, Over which reign in turn the father of all songs, Phoebus, and the great Pan, lord of harvest. The Venal Muse Muse of my heart, you who love palaces, When January frees his north winds, will you have, During the black ennui of snowy evenings, An ember to warm your two feet blue with cold? Will you bring the warmth back to your mottled shoulders, With the nocturnal beams that pass through the shutters? Knowing that your purse is as dry as your palate, Will you harvest the gold of the blue, vaulted sky? To earn your daily bread you are obliged To swing the censer like an altar boy, And to sing Te Deums in which you don't believe, Or, hungry mountebank, to put up for sale your charm, Your laughter wet with tears which people do not see, To make the vulgar herd shake with laughter. Charles Baudelaire ********************************************* http: //www.cosmicbaseball.com/jmicheline07.html - referenced in links 'The Battle of Maldon' Wiki, Thesis sourced. http: //www.tolkienlibrary.com/press/844-Tolkiens_Heroic_Quest.php - book review - Book in the stacks at Cornell 'Riverwindwolves' Monkey Kettle Vol.23 pgs.14-17 'Goldilocks And The Spear of Longinus' Monkey Kettle Vol.26 pg.4 'The Base of Colorado' Monkey kettle Vol.29 pgs.40-41 'Siren or Beowolf's Mother, Whoever' Monkey Kettle vol.32 Poetry being used in a English Language Project/Book, Cyprus International University)

The Best Poem Of Robert Rorabeck

A Flower In The Rain

I want to fall on you like rain
upon a wildflower
Opening new reason from you
Scaring all the old bees away from
Pollinating your bed
Scaring all the fake men off who
Can only stand the sun
So it’s just me and you in the
Meadow
The rabbits in the hole
The grasses are wet and beginning to bow
The forest is damp and sleepy
And in the meadow
I bend down and kiss your petals wetly
Falling all over you
Letting your pistil slip into my mouth
Sucking off your honey,
Almost plucking you
But not going so far
Just pulling you so that you can feel
Your roots leaving
To let you almost taste
My world in the sky
So afterwards you can go down
Believing
The words on my lips
When I fall on my knees for you
A flower in the rain.

Robert Rorabeck Comments

Virginie Guillemette 06 March 2008

i really enjoy your work...i feel the sense of time given your words, as if you choose them as one chooses the ripest cherries in the pile. clever and from an honest place.

2 1 Reply
Jenda Lecroy 14 April 2010

A true poet. Old soul, new life.

2 1 Reply
Prabir Gayen 26 March 2019

A good and talented poet....God bless you...

0 1 Reply
Z. M. Wise 23 April 2015

From what minescule fragments of a stockpile of poetic brilliance, I am completely blown away by Mr. Rorabeck's work. From his style and influences to his timing, rhythm, etc...I hope he never ceases this archaic and timeless craft. POETRY LIVES! !

3 0 Reply
Justin Reamer 17 May 2012

I believe Bret is a very good poet. He seems to know what it takes to be a good poet. His rime and rhythm is evenly matched, and he knows how to convey his message in his poem. His poetry is flowing and soothing to the ear. He is one of the best modern poets on this site.

4 0 Reply
Peter O'Brien 18 September 2011

A lovely selection of poems! The silver & gold of of famous wordsmiths - Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Lorca, Whitman & others! 'These fragment have I shored against my ruin...'. thanks Peter

3 1 Reply
Jim Troy 10 August 2011

I have read just one and had to leave my applause. Gratefully looking forward, the honor to read more of your great works........Jim Troy

4 1 Reply

Robert Rorabeck Quotes

Well, you took so long to come home To my suburbia amongst the cliffs, That I decid e d to become drunken beyond Reckoning, Out amidst the j u need cars. Now just you look at this beautiful girl Beaten beyond reckoning. Do you Know her, well you say you do. Save her and lie her in The beautiful house between He trees. If you say you do. It is all you are.

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