Robert Rorabeck Poems

This feels the joys of a poisoned arrow,
Precise and to the heart:
The apples split over the heads of Siamese twins
By the same thing:
...

Wives lost into graveyards,
Strewn from their imperfect marks: now bachelors
Traveling in their distraught cars
All over town, getting ice-cream alone- windows
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Words in the bottom of a brook,
Counting stones and looking backwards at the fish
Swimming up stream
Changing classes in this part of America:
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If I begin this this way,
I will surely begin again: a song bird awakening
With my pen:
Dreary eyes, dumbly cast- the serpent like a moon in
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The airplanes roam the earth as I make a home for
Myself:
The fires burn across her lips, and the beasts with horns
Trumpet like wedding day gems through the snow;
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We need to talk now and then lie down to
Rest,
While the shells in the road lie there like cenotaphs
Brushed by the cars:
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Rife with the kites in the air- the inexperienced
Wind blowing anyways,
Over the super markets and estuaries, and the
Young girls gone astray losing themselves
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Proud is the peacock at the fair
Filled with his own hidden shadows, colors dimmed-
And the long ride from home forgotten:
And all of the faces about him, jovially mooning-
...

If the day yellows, it sings to her as it curls up,
Winnowing its airplanes who are coming down
Like whippoorwills of dreams
To fasten to her hair, and sing to her of secret springs
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Fastening to the heirlooms it attends,
Going out into the streets after the make-believe
Fireworks and climbing up into the family tree:
What is this to happen here,
...