In The Valley Of The Shadow Of Death Poem by Robert Rorabeck

I thought maybe today it would snow,
But I still went ahead and did the regular things;
If I drank more Chablis, I think I might
Get my poems published, in lustrous broadsides,
Knickknacks for worms and other handles,
Scattered there in the valley of the shadow of death along with
The loosed cannonballs and ceaselessly joyful cavalries,
Find that I don’t have to shave to become
An associate professor of poetry at a local college,
If I lived in New England, or knew how to
Fix and ride a John Deer tractor, or write a
Letter to a best friend, or someone who could become a politician,
But I only drink the cheapest rum, and do not watch
Football, and baseball only when it comes to
The world series. I fixate on bartenders who do
Not come, who are busier with better handles-
I’m a strange sort of bum, who shoots roman candles
Across the canal, spends the day alone chewing his
Gums under the roly-poly sun: I have spend days
And days alone, throwing sticks and bones to my
Dogs, lulling; and yet tomorrow, I shall join weddings
In the shadow of the Colorado Rockies, only to
Go back down again away from the lips of sommeliers.
For now I will stay up until I come down, and these will
Be the last few lines of another evening in limbo:
What strange inventions, these last charges of the light
Brigade, while grandfathers snore the next room over
From their favorite sons. I used to crack her knuckles
For her, and c*ck her guns; but that really isn’t true,
None of it, the unruly schemes patter out upon the
Skree along the nape of nostalgia’s summit.
I can see it like yesterday, and thus I scramble to reach
Her who I am forever approaching.