Robert Rorabeck Poems

Spiders with red scars crawl up the
Wall to the sadness of the church’s organ;
There is a leak in the corner molting the drywall,
The practitioners avoid it with their eyes.
...

I read my own words like looking
At myself in the mirror.
When I blur, I am beautiful,
And have important things to say.
...

Headless and naked,
The dandelions have begun to blow
Their spores.
No longer virginal, they will become
...

I’ll dress myself up as a gentleman,
And you a society lady,
And buttoned in our new finery, we’ll
Remove ourselves from the shady valley:
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As little as a candle’s flame, I hold
Dreams for you, like
Amethyst on the courthouse floor,
Like a heron perched on a branch in
...

Cerulean feelings mean I’m blue.
I’ve been driving in this truck for too long:
There have been no exits since high school.
...

I love speaking the queen’s English
So well, I could never be Mark Twain:
Testing the depths of Mississippi’s lips,
To know the extemporaneous Ebonics
...

I write for epitaphs on headless graves.
The wind kisses my fingers affectionately.
She wishes that I would shave;
She is as junoesque as the burnished sea,
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The scars like tinsel;
Like bicycle spokes around the sun.
I am thirty, spider legs come out from
The corners of my eyes. Do you pity me now?
...

Oh, what trouble I’ve begun
Tonight; it says its 7: 07, a palindrome,
Like Anna, like Anna, like Anna.
I am fishing at the lip of the canal,
...