The Airplanes Of Our Times Poem by Robert Rorabeck

I would carry you through the jungles, David,
As I would carry you through the stars:

The cars are parked in the drive-in movie theatres,
David,
And you go home underneath the overpasses,
Sleeping with some other man's wife.
a man whom I have never met.

But you are mine, and I will pay you tomorrow, David,
even if I rains: we will meet, and I will watch you Roll
your dope
hypoloxo-ed in the places where you've always lived,

North of Trinidad and Tobago,
and the other islanders drinking rum and using sabers

You are American and Black,
And I do not know the streets that raised you:
I do not know those strange eucastratrophes
Where you go to sell the trinkets that I give you as
Payment,
Like birds' nests collected in the knots
Of A Sappy pine-tree blinded from its ghetto youth:

Your children having died from Leukemia
while you were doing a stint in jail for drug possession:

Since you were growing up, they've called you smeat-head,
because of the shape of your skull:


Looking at you dancing, dancing in the asphalt where we
learning to make money-
Just another poem whilst the clock moves her hands-
don't you notice her, directing the airplanes of our times-

The survivors and ghosts are collecting like barrettes in her hair.
It is the weekend after Halloween. You have called me. I
have missed your call.

You want money from me, David-
The rain is in the house as it is in her eyes.