Robert Rorabeck Poems

If I haven’t seen snow falling over empty parking lots
How can I become a habitual prairie for your séances
After I have given all of my father money
And all of my mother good wishes-
...

You are here- in the palm of my hand,
Like a snowflake melting, like a butterfly I have captured
And there is no words to say how I have killed
You- and you cannot pay for your bills
...

I do not wish to see the horses back in the valley-
Or the nights filled with bedrooms in which you lay with the
Lupines and the rubrum,
Poisonous and as deadly as a naked book banned in that
...

And then they will say that you have
Abandoned Colorado with the arcs and the blueberries
Uneaten by cats as with canaries,
The lightning leaping from nipple to mountainous nipple,
...

I drink cheap grape soda- eat
Buttered toast with molasses, dream of you;
Its been a long time since I recognized anything,
Caught up in the circulating amusement rides:
...

They were held over in their march,
So even the prettier girls had to watch the way
The bachelors clung to their sallow houses
Underneath the forts and their dying
...

I sweat at the angles that she can love me in,
Like angels holding out,
Still reading underneath the softening pyramids,
Or the lamplight of dousing lighthouses:
...

I don’t want to play around with you
Again, around the parks of the dead railroads
Or the willows of the murdered
Girls: I have felt your brown skin in my ghostly
...

Beautiful as the nuisance of traffics along the
Highways,
The scars of eagles drying like wet paint upon my
Face-
...

I don’t want to play around with you
Again, around the parks of the dead railroads
Or the willows of the murdered
Girls: I have felt your brown skin in my ghostly
...