Robert Rorabeck Poems

Solar tresses
Breed the sacrificial renaissance
Tossed amidst the Negroid stars:
The blind men who speak boldly
...

Strange limbs gesturing in outer space.
I suppose they are the perambulating nebulas,
But I cannot see them with a naked eye,
How I imagine they go about their jobs
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Sad, sad decomposition
These atoms are frantic,
And tired of waiting to take her
To the prom- They have thrown away their corsage,
...

If today was yesterday, was a year, a decade:
Zeno would still be sitting in the kitchen,
Sharing lightweight conversation with your mother:
The laundry would still be churning like
...

The grieving window is open a pace
Blowing consumptive curtains of atomic lace-
The world outside is glowing a cadmium wound,
And the war helicopters are dying like sprayed bees....
...

Oh gilded earth,
How come you hide the bones
Of dead poets under amusement parks?
Even the masses have more anonymous names,
...

The waves turn themselves green,
To help you feel better,
But they only end up reminding you of her
Birth stone,
...

Unbutton the stars,
Because I don’t care:
Disrobe the night’s gown
And let the sky hang bare:
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These words are tourists who almost find god
Lost in Valencia, Spain;
They ask their directions from the crinkled lady selling
Tulips, but keeping the orchids for herself,
...

The penumbra found him on a rain day,
And they sat together playing cards;
The brightest moonlight hung over them
Like a roof the rain snuck through,
...