Songs To No One Else Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Besides all of these scars,
Don’t I want to be popular-
Don’t I want to travel by foot
And whistle in the rutted tracks,
Like any good American boy should
Want to do that:
I want to lay out straight off as the sun
Turns the theatre into blue innocence
Immaculate,
Pulls back the bilious weathers, lays a
Squinting hand and coos to her
Making the stage ready for butcheries thrown
Out to the hungry crowds gathered shoeless
In the invested grass:
Until soft and blue and speechless,
I can feel all of that glory just on one side
Of my face coming down;
And it is ringing in the greatest absences of
Family and gossip,
Which I cherish as I set out, whistling and picking
The neighbor’s apple when there is everything
Else to eat and no one else around.