Robert Rorabeck Poems

Scarred gray-
Today is a sepia holiday:
Knocking on your womb, wanting in:
Wanting to prick you with the mammalian barb,
...

One thing bought the bottle,

One thing bought the scar,
...

Teal monuments hover and vibrate like
Threatening broadcasts over the sloping greens
With little holes,
And little flags which wave like little surrenders,
...

When I was a little boy I had similar fetishes,
I drew cars on paper, crayoned in- I cut them out,
Gave them names- hundreds.
Later, I did fast-food origami airplanes,
...

All I can really say is that my new face
Looks like Picasso got punched,
And that’s okay: a little crooked, like President
D$ck, unsymmetrical, but big,
...

Creak, jigsaw cheek-
My parents make love above this tomb.
My dogs are my cenotaph,
In bankruptcy bloom:
...

I am god calypso:
When at night and I’ve had too much light coffee,
Got a molar that has come in sideways like an
Insubordinate ship,
...

A few men have the banner of songs,
And pin wheeled whistles on their lapels,
Something winning up their sleeves
When they walk into the restaurant of
...

I can’t afford expensive lines myself,
And I don’t want to be indebted to the Man-
I need my soul to be homeless and wayward,
A tattered gown rented and torn after it was
...

I read my own words like masturbating.
Sometimes I am disgusted with myself I
Do it so much,
And I can’t spell, and I seem to repeat
...