The Tyrant Of This Neighborhood’s Illusion Poem by Robert Rorabeck

The prehistoric itch keepings feeling like
I should go out and fornicate in the dead-dog
Meadows with absolutely nobody,
Because if not now,
When will the crops grow through the
Radiations of failed government policy;
But staring up at the sky,
And staring up at the sky it is all I understand:
That the sun does not reciprocate,
It has no cherished thoughts of you,
And me alone, but swings the earth
Around, and around, and around
Though she might cry for him to stop:
Stop! Stop! Stop!
But he don’t give a damn,
Because he owns her and everything
Else in this neck of the woods,
And he’ll do as he likes with you
And everybody else, and me alone,
And nobody. Nobody atop the clock
With the secret passage, drinking the wine,
Laughing, laughing, laughing,
Pouring out the time, but not tasting anything:
Laughing, that I should find somebody,
Laughing, that it is impossible,
And the loneliness is unbounded and uncaged,
The sun’s favorite pet,
Whirling and leaping, and taking on
The disguises of love:
We all have to work for a living,
And there is his seed, his way through,
Barking at the bones in the banishing room,
And you might find a lady walking the streets
Who you could take home and treat her right
For some years, but in the end,
Even after the children, and the games of joy,
In the end, In the end:
It is only nobody, nobody, nobody:
The sun’s pet, doing the tricks of time,
Only to bite your hand, to draw some blood,
To turn and growl and then to leap
Through the window of the next century
That you will never see to warn them,
The people you helped passed through the doorway,
Let out on the streets,
In the dark theatres,
In the licking seas, in the smoky bars,
In the whispering churches, in the jingling
Stores, in the washrooms,
In the sterile offices, in the departments,
In the corridors, down the walks,
Amidst the trees,
And through the crowded cemetery
Where the caroling crows sing:
There is only nobody.
The is just nobody....
With the sun whipping us lavishly with
The time he weaves, his fingers curling
The flairs of the sun,
The ancient man, the old incest,
The tyrant of this neighborhood’s illusion,
And all the rest:
Gone,
Echoes,
Nostalgic estuaries that drip their sadness,
Though she will never return to reclaim and illuminate:
You are,
She was,
I am:
Nobody.