Robert Rorabeck Poems

Like the dissected rainbow of abused starlets
Like the beginning or the end of my misappropriated
Hope
That I cannot see the outcome for, and yet the sea
...

Busy visions of a childhood and her ghosts,
Words that linger in a poor man’s clutch, as she looks
Away perpetually, browns stems quivering over
Her children, but she is out of leaves and warmth-
...

If the day yellows, it sings to her as it curls up,
Winnowing its airplanes who are coming down
Like whippoorwills of dreams
To fasten to her hair, and sing to her of secret springs
...

I have seen you lying under the sky
Like the Great Victoria Desert of Australia,
Your body the milky smoothness of Oasis,
My eyes come to drink with the animals off
...

Close set the stores and hide
The abdomen of my laziness. Feed chickenpox
To alligators,
And go outdoors, brown bagging liquor and fireworks.
...

I am the only one who
Orgasms
An origami jungle
Screaming in papier-mâché
...

I need a woman at my
door to drive home to
some long honey momma
who will love me
...

The time has not come before
And this is new.
The light is opening for the day
An ingénue displaying her bosom
...

The time has not come before
And this is new.
The light is opening for the day
An ingénue displaying her bosom
...

With others old and gray,
Or not so old at all—Maybe they will
Mostly be fair haired and young,
If it should be a tragedy. Who knows?
...