Robert Rorabeck Poems

In a sad world of brilliant roman candles
You get your picture taken in the middle of the school day—
You've had so many boyfriends you cannot remember—
The candlelight goes out over your birthday—
...

Brilliancies that evaporate as my inebriation is wearing off:
Now I drink soup and pretend to love you forever
In the morning
As I listen to the soundtracks for the new week—
...

With the silence that evaporates the cars from their houses—
It inaugurates these congregations of misspellings the frogs
Are serenading,
So I don't suppose you know a single bit of my love—
...

I see the dead through the windows of our cars
As we drive—
Vehicles that disappear under the sun,
Like the men of the Alamo—
...

They'll put their pledges into your eyes—
Yes they will, and then you'll drive out of the parking lot
Of the mall,
Or your own driveway—just like the pieta half hidden
...

Swallowing the whole penny
As some dogs look up at the strange sun—
And they cannot smell it,
Even as airplanes seem to leap over it:
...

Slow diamond of a burning ship
Calling for your love with my entrails- a need for this void
And the skeletons float, laughing—
Made to believe in the rhythms of the journey
...

You have put me here,
Burned and blinded by your fire—I cannot call for
A ride home—I only want to drink more
Liquor and wait for you—
...

Standing off by myself with the pigeons
Cooing in their shade,
Watching the busses turning around,
Spun off the hips of housewives
...

Open lips of empty sea-shells are beautiful—
And I think of you
While I am walking alone at the flea-market
On an usual weekend,
...