Robert Rorabeck Poems

Bivouacked in outer space,

You eat your own words
Just to stay alive.
...

Naked apples and candy canes- No one is going
To the fair,
But the clouds are not gone- they are hanging there,
And the road down beneath them, reflecting their
...

Laughing beside their plots,
Relatives and forget-me-nots, do not decide
Upon a thing:
They lay right there through the oratories
...

Bodies doing pushups know tricks
And high carols:
Alma wants a new bust for Christmas, but I
Tell her she looks beautiful:
...

Asphodels in the glorious equipages of
Unmined bedrooms where the canaries still sing,
And I ejaculate on the green carpet
And kiss the paperclip nosecones of paper
...

Now if there are cops underneath the airplanes
Who look as if they are wearing their mothers’ jewelry far into
The night,
Why let them come in their magic cloaks, as long as I get
...

Dogs come down to the basement while ash floats
Through the sky,
And airplanes and baseball are coming down
Across the moats to the castle,
...

Up in the wounds of tall trees, sent up like embers
From her kicking feet: she is dancing atop the
Spines of
Rattlesnakes and pinecones- making love to something
...

Armpits of matchsticks in the memories of
Her kitchen-
Alligators as big as bears in her backyard woods
Where I used to play
...

Franchises beneath the palmettos and airplanes,
Trying to say her name into dusk,
Losing myself like cicadas- watching the little boys
Turn gray in the wash of cenotaphs and
...