Film Poem by Robert Rorabeck

I wanted to make a film of our love,
But it is better to walk away someplace else,
To fornicate with strangers
In a Hollywood movie;
But your eyes are projecting on the screen
Flashes of light skipping children
Around a desolate tree
In a lightning storm.

The purpose of filming you
Is to show the incredible beauty you exude
When you sit in the satin chair in
A Victorian meadow
And stare outward as
If seeing a secret girl
Skinning her knees in a
Narrow passageway into
The sky:

For a moment there seems to be nothing,
But then you notice there is a color to it,
As your eyes search the tiniest swath
To the left (Which means you are telling the truth)
There is the sound of your flesh panting,
Like a kitten scratching at the kitchen door,
And of the microscopic
Combing in the field of trimmed grass,
Death and field-mice cleaning
Their likely plates.

The purpose of the art form
Is to show the stratification of human life,
To get laid because you do something competently
In the motionless conviction
Sitting in the rainstorm.
Your blouse is papier-mâché
Glued to your breasts,
Your eyes the conduits through
Which the audience appreciates

The wind is corrugating the lake.
The waves in perfect phalanx
Dying on shore,
The power of invisible force
Revealed like a harem of ghosts
In the rising smoke curling from
A cigarette’s cherry.

The cautious adversary,
I use field-glasses to watch you
Cross your legs
As raindrops meet up and celebrate
In drunken rivulets
Down your shins.

Deliberately, your gaze turns
To a place off-camera
Where you seem to see
Something you recognize….