Robert Rorabeck Poems

The only evidence that he was once
A clown,
Was the way the bright pastels swirled
In the waters running under his chin.
...

I can't even remember who I am
anymore
and it is a beautiful thing
when the lights are cut,
...

In the silver-gilled days of late November,
Thinking of what she became for Halloween,
She runs her dove-grey hands through the shoreline’s flesh—
On her shoulders, the sun is weeping the final fiery tears
...

Envious cataract of
Lonliness spills like overturned
Liquor from my slaughtered
Heart: A salinous lake without wind—
...

Let us attend to
The hyperactive lullabying bowers
The neon forests the
Working girls strut like
...

I am going to die, mom.
Do you understand, father?
I am going to die,
Soon after you,
...

Nothing ties me down:
I am loosed into the world.
Strangers come out of straw shacks
With used knifes
...

I heard the noise of giving-birth today,
Deep in the truculent woodworks of the world.
This began with passion’s coy whispering
And the coming together of two bodies in
...

Subtly now but every day
Grandmothers are passing away
Thoughtlessly they are floating upward.
The sky is greeting them
...