Like A False Arrow Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Tired by words- just these ink scars
Moths and masks all over me,
Nocturnal jewels-
The color of evil on a beautiful lake,
The egrets horn-rimmed up in the swaying
Slashes,
I want to sing a siren’s lullaby call you
From you household, your two-car garage,
Transform you in the breeding grounds of
Dun amphibians, ask you what you see over
My shoulder, the planes and god,
And the crooked tatters making merry:
I want a voice to make indelible to you,
To feed you my marble games, the roe from my
Fingertips, the svelte shadows from my shoulder
Blades;
But every word is a failure, a burned face,
Romance to a blind woman that doesn’t intrude-
I can see you down in your neighborhood of pure
Somnambulance, seeming to dance, but you
Are distracted- There is so much needing to do
To keep you up, and not one of my brown eyed
Syllables is handsome enough that they might
Transgress the even boundaries,
To steal of a sudden to your lips, or through the taming
Dusks, to wake you from the dream of the well you
Willingly fell into where a prince called singing
Words I’d hate to think have you situated in a fond place
and callous to my wounded page,
Which I send like a false arrow burning to ignite
A cooling heart.