Drunken Shame Poem by Robert Rorabeck

want to love you, but that’s the thing:
I’ve worked it all out, but it’s obscene:
You’re laying down with your bouncer,
You’re serving drinks to the derelicts,
And this isn’t even yet Shackleton’s invention:
I might be going back to high school,
And that’s cool: for as in between your legs
I would like to play out as the fool:
I’m not Shakespeare, but here’s the thing before
You leave, I’ve written entire novels about you
And the sea. As a juvenile, I’ve stolen those things
Pre-requisite to know about you; or, at least I
Stole a Pl-yboy in Key West on my friend Jordan’s
Birthday; eight(teen) or so years ago- but, how, even now
I’m being considered by a major literary agent,
But not now- they’ve reconsidered, and are not
Thinking about me, how so now I don’t have any friends
Who are not Bahia; or that guy, but I almost have enough
Money to buy a house next to that Mouse;
Another insouciant orchestra lives in South Africa,
But he’s German, and given to the jaw. Now this is just
Getting ridiculous and I would be remiss to not insinuate
The jest that I would not like to be under your blouse even
Though you are a jaunty stewardess: but this is not true,
I drool: I would be remiss to insist that under your blouse
I would like to lay the foundation of my house, the forensic
Evidence of a shooting evidence of a mouse: I would like
To lay it down like a louse, but I’ve had too many sips to go
Through with this, I love you, E-:
And this is not a rhyme. You don’t consider me anymore,
And that is just a crying shame. I would like to shoot myself.
I have consider this already. My sister is married, and I am out
Of bullets; and you are f&ck-ng a bouncer, but I don’t know anything
About that. See now how you pose him holding up your friend's
Tit like a chalice, what the f- is up with that?
E-, I hate myself: I’ve tried to kill myself over you, see how I s-ck
At this: I don’t know anyone. I don’t even know my sisters;
And I shouldn’t self-publish this, but here it goes out the window
Like an insouciant airplane; and I am drunk, and where you live
It is Saturday, and this poem has bled off onto the next page
Like a gangsters; but you’re not even reading it are you, E-
I would like to buy a house near you and sink into a swamp, because
I can’t even think of anything better: I haven’t even been with
The juxtaposition of my s-x in two years, E-
And where are you, because I cannot write anymore tonight
Without your ghost, and I am lost without you,
And that is all there is, which is all of this:
Only a crying, drunken shame.