Dragon Car Blues Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Even if I was the Dauphin of France,
I wouldn’t use you as a paramour-

The ancillary vagabonds never had a chance;
They fell asleep in poppy fields on
Their way to war-

And I smoke in my dragon car-
With the ghosts who preen like rain,
Who enter through my hollows like snakes
Search for corn in a cracked vase;

They are just as cold and as tender hooked,
Like wounded kines bleating under blusterous
Lindens,

Off the careworn easements of the old shell road’s wind;
The Australian pines tussle.

On Saturdays there are dragon cartoons
On the television-
But I’ll never be the Dauphin of France;
I’ll never use you for a paramour, or make you take
Other countries for me:

I never even thought to roll the chance,
But keep to my paranormal conversations,
My cactus gardens sick of the hummingbird’s fast-beaten
Molestations

Smoking in accumulating rain, consumptive
And miss formed in my dragon car.