Burying Words Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Christian dogs recalculate how
Much money they brought to the rodeo;
But they don’t really know what to do with her
Beautiful eyes in the sun,
Or what they may say as they go about telling them
Everything with out a tongue;
Or so I’ve seen or heard say before:
Now I lounge inside of house without a wife,
And poems come like little children with butcher knives;
But they cannot reach me from where they are with
Scowling lips that cannot spell:
They do not know the words they say, and that is
Why they lay down without supper by the end of dusk:
All the unpublished schoolyard boys lay down as if in a kiln,
Not able to be sold, not a single word, the freckled pests:
Not even outside near the fort next to the ice-cream vendor:
They are my scars, the little imps- And no one loves them,
And that’s just the thing, because I can drink and keep them
Bottle up as upstairs someone says that was a good movie,
But it wasn’t; it really wasn’t-
And I should move away now- I almost can,
And forget to record how my day went lonely and unspoken;
And somewhere else she is married, but she doesn’t have
Any money- I have money and I can lay down and say
My simple things, say to myself now here it is
And take it; and if I do, and buy myself a plot, then
That entire yard will be mine, so green and tranquil that my
Words can lie across it like paper-airplanes now,
And I can say to them without speaking- Here is the thing for
You children. Lie down here and be at ease while your
Father drinks his liquor. Just be quiet while you can,
And when I get done, and my gums are bleeding,
And the dogs are howling,
Then I will get back to burying you as I will; and then
They should be just as quiet as thieves until I come for them.