Robert Rorabeck Poems

Sunshine came, or at least she admitted to the lie:
If she came, freckled on the long strong
Tie of a rattlesnake’s perplexity:
All of its aching venom curling up in the pitchfork
...

Then it feels like soft gold- worn by Alma:
And they make love again
Only to disappear like her rabbits and the grass grows:
The foliage crenulates awaiting her overtime
...

In the houses reaped by themselves:
They flee the Mexicans- lost and lonely boys who are
My friends
Who have no table manners- only innuendos and excuses
...

I pay for anyways: and I die, or I go
To lunch:
Skipping stones over the haunches of bicycles, while
No one from my school can remember me:
...

Striking out like the venom of a favorite color:
And I get drunk again: lose my promises: try to figure out the old
And vulgar sins of becoming for a little while
More beautiful:
...

Then they have friends who make love too:
Over the house- over the zoo:
While the winos nuzzle, and the mountains blue: and then the nights
Get real cold
...

It pains me to say this,
But I am done: a morgue of ancestors- a morgue of
Come,
And words that fill up the pockets of a superfluous midway:
...

Perturbed for awhile, and then there’s peace:
The wise men follow the stars out into the East,
And even the illusions bend and
Pray:
...

If it works: but it is broken:
The apple trees in the orchard, the virgin’s token-
And the airplanes upon their wings:
Fly straight over the forts of
...

Your friends are in the trucks
And they are going higher up the mountains and swinging
Underneath the taillights of the moon
Which brings down the most beautiful
...