Robert Rorabeck Poems

Thoughts of fickle roses and
Credit card machines-
A police dog’s bite mark in my
Left forearm,
...

At night aren’t you a god of snowbells?
Don’t you practice your paper crafts with wine
And cheese,
A little teacher of the northern hemisphere
...

Sad land of Mary’s God.
My scars cast brightly in the sun-
I haven’t any friends no more-
And I am more alive than anyone-
...

The alligator makes love to
A cloud of the shape of
Grecian beauty; an entire pearled
Orchard bilious and queasy
...

Vivisected for high school anatomy-
See that it don’t grow new curious
Red veins and purple arteries,
Like a staunched starfish;
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More cars arrive
And it’s a safe bet with loud vane
Women-
That they will buy things and go home
...

The clouds are happy to have
Both their ears,
And they rise up, rise up
Like kings-
...

Stranded in this truck like
A boat on a teaming
Sea,
A concrete aquarium where
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The breeze brushes my lips as
It brushes hers;
Whitman might say it paints the
Throats of leaves the
...

Flowers pattering in the
Melting snow-
Short obituaries drift like wood
In sugar palm cities. Everything
...