Robert Rorabeck Poems

A few men have the banner of songs,
And pin wheeled whistles on their lapels,
Something winning up their sleeves
When they walk into the restaurant of
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Fireworks,
Like insects of men,
Like a field of smoking muskets-
Everything done well in life
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I feel guilty for my liquor, or my love-
I have no faith in the monster making friends above,
Turning out the ilk of psalms, the pasty solicitations,
Thrumming the heart of palms:
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If I have cars, and I have numbers,
And windows situated so that they may never
Look out at the rain,
The bowled, smoothed teeth of cemeteries,
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Our combined bodies are slowing down the earth-
The waves are pausing,
Giving off flickers, like organizations of
Dragonflies and lightning bugs. Those chemists,
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They say my poetry is to be taught in Turkey,
So I don’t see a need to make much of money,
As I am already fully invested
In the enterprises of the lavish poor,
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Face mottled like an old penny,
A yellowed nursery rhyme she used to love,
I masticate on imbedded wisdom teeth,
Recall the roadside pornography of the Indian
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America killed a unicorn,

And turned on all the lights
Throughout the defeated forest;
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Relatively speaking,
I am cold,

Made out of gemstones,
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I beat the Lord at his own game,

I snuck into the graveyard before my shift,
...