The End Of It Poem by Robert Rorabeck

So much plodding grief
Cannot open up the silence,
Metamorphose the ugly duckling into the
Grandest novel that it is so blinding
That all the socialites and suburbanites can do
Nothing but serving it drinks and take it to bed
To service it:

This is a very sad thing, laid bare in the
Car port next to the forgotten four-wheeled sarcophagus,
The rebar and extinguishing amphibians.
Next to the mouse chewed orange extension chord
My mother was twice severely electrocuted on while
My father was fixing the neighbor lady’s washing
Machine,
Getting help from all those self commoving Mexicans:

This cheap liquor tastes like pumpkin juice,
And I am a very sad man,
Sleeping in his room underground now for over five sad years while
His ex associates repositioned themselves with Jewish lawyers
From south Florida
With similar persuasions and dining out habits:

Oh, I once loved to play make believe out amidst the
Affluent white pillars all six of them that my father had perceived
By selling so many tomatoes for so many dollars
Out amidst the mosquitoes and water moccasins:
I had an entire retinue of paper airplanes,
Supported by legions of green plastic soldiers and war-
Painted Indians.

Now my letters skip the canal like stones, but I am
No more a teenager cutting snowflakes from clean white paper.
What overgrown holocaust has brought me to this point
Where I must proceed down the mountain or disappear from my
Petty crimes everyone else has forgotten:

I stole from kindergarten and I’ve written twice a dozen novels
That won’t sell-
I am a lazy atheist with two dogs who love me even after
Everyone else have left the gloomy classroom
And christened their happy lives with that new car smell.

This is the end of it, the country of a terribly complexioned
Mind. My two dogs are my children,
And I’ll take them with me through the blackest of all forgetful
Waters-
We’ll play fetch in Hell.
I’m sure you’ll pay no mind.