Robert Rorabeck Poems

The hang-man’s lover mopes
Around after class,
Trying to figure out the word
To get him down,
...

Perfections that are not there,
Hunting through the backyards of
High school girls
Metamorphosed into housewives
...

Hope in abandoned fields
Fertilize our retreat:
She is sitting on a couch in
Her living room,
...

Everything in words now:
Her love in words,
On the verge of the publisher’s bloom:
Her lips and chin words,
...

Imperfect stairway up to God,
And there are many distractions,
Changing
Their dresses:
...

Crawling jade hearts
Out of the bleeding tool-box:
Cerulean sea-horses
Swallowed in
...

Across that sea
The amber rose,
Beneath the waves
Of mid-west prairies,
...

Bared at the sea’s subtlety,
Whispered by the salt enclave
A rainbow’s theory
Butchered like presents
...

Envious news marches green
Down the western cliffs:
This is where the prince was blown
When the wizard found him
...

I suppose I am selling again,
The words that come
On my lips after midnight,
And everything has changed
...