The Unpublished Continent Poem by Robert Rorabeck

I’m so ugly:
For instance, I want to join the army
To leave my dog behind in Arizona,
To crush the skulls of Iraqi children
To bleed into the red sea, to prove to
My parents I am something,

I can feel it in my gut,
The words which recreate the feeling
Of a repeating sun exploding the first
Birth inside me, I have hands which
Cause prints to forever lay on the
Carved stone of grave markers,

Everyone has a father, who
Everyone forgets the name of,
But they always remember their
Business and the gross product of
The year- how people come in,
Growing the fine plants of the sunlight
Which bloom best at the end of the year,

Like fashionable coats or the first
Rainbows to cross the street of your eyes

They take photos of their eyes shiny
Brightly, always like first born neons
Under our tents

You can see them now and always,
Poking out of store windows like newly
Born words that wilt after a month because
They have no roots.

So, like I said,
I have a perpetual tooth ache,
And a binge to die- I fornicate over the gun
(I’m a good American with a steady brain)
Placed to the temple, I have a place to go-
Far, far away- over the sea they will lay me,
They will lay me

As I graffiti words on the computer,
The nameless man makes love to my ex-lover.
As her face lingers over a fading heart, the
Beating in me still trying to escape into another
Century, another heart that is loud and obviously
Beautiful with many people who love him,

But alone, all alone,
I must beat on, desperate and far away
From you,
Know I must have you and the words
Which linger,
The bad skin and the eyes on it:

I must go on,

For a little longer,

I must go on

As my arm separates
As my teeth and eyes take off
As my heart flutters away,

I must go on,
Thinking of you naked in the strange
Ponds in the Urban Heart,

I linger,
As the grass grows up to God’s
Neck,
Untrimmed,

I continue
(toward the unpublished continent
Of the regional band of the regional city
With good tits that perk up when two
$20s are rubbed together!)