Robert Rorabeck Poems

In poems, wounded, waiting again for the airplanes-
Watching the bag ladies beside the traffic,
Their noses turned up to the silver underbellies
Of flying things:
...

Rediscovering the tickets that cannot hold out,
With everyday our Sunday:
The traffic and the sun down, the palm trees
Easy,
...

Yellow house, and turtle dove:
And body of man who very seldom is ever even there:
But you are there, as the waves whispering up
To the shore I never go to,
...

Wound up by whatever hypotheses are in my labyrinth
And suffering nightly-
In the cooling estuaries of a suburbia I was never allowed
To attend,
...

Unhealing wound, this me underneath your shadow,
Making my rounds in the city that was my cradle, and is proving
To be my tomb,
Friendless, but with necessity: I drive the truck to pay the bills,
...

We both have tailbones
Which means not so very long ago we
Were fish,
In the greater scheme of things
...

Is it beautiful to say I love you
Even though I haven’t seen you for ten years?
But you once kissed my neck and you are not my aunt.
I still feel you there, and you are behind my eyes.
...

Mom,
I’m a little bit tipsy,
But I’m a good guy,
Mom.
...

Lights as if in a naked carnival:
Taken down from the sky, rivers laughing or falling in love:
Or dying-
The racing of unending beasts that know the hearts and
...

This is a tomb they put into print around the
Clandestine houses where the oldest of the living people
Remain-
Charred up, speaking to the shadows, as the airplanes
...