Robert Rorabeck Poems

Vespers in the early morning while the bartenders yawn,
And the crawdads flash underneath the oaken
Driftwood- maybe you’ve thrown your favorite vanity outside
The window at this time of early morning,
...

Yellow day how you shed like serpent skin
In the brush tantalizing a wildfire yet to come
Sparked off the wheels of
Some fleeing mother; but how pale you are in
...

If there was a turtle sitting there
Slanted into the canal my mother dove into-
Could I ask him where she fled
Off to, the house wanting to follow her-
...

Poem of empty ballrooms- this is your star
Made for witches tearing- it is their airy folklore
That makes the dew, that puts the rabbits
To sleep while the girls are unremarkable until
...

Unoriginal swan in the middle of the street
Do you not know that it never snows here- and if
You have come to see your similar beauty in
The conflagrations of the sea,
...

Marmalade on the lips of a bumble bee
On the lips of my muse: there you are cavorting in
The backyard, while all of the cars
Are sunken into the canal: your breasts are beautiful
...

Purple is the throat of the pagan flowers
Up the Welsh slopes and their darker sisters- where
It rains unevenly for the weeks, and keeps the tourists
Inside- and the kings there wear antlers,
...

Then here I am softly impressed- when tomorrow I will
Get up and sell fireworks through the thundershowers:
I will keep on getting up and impressing from my
Little house,
...

Soft in that touch of clouds: dying a bachelor alone
At a baseball game
Without the touch of his dogs- while beneath his
Casket and Snow white
...

Up in the clove of death: Mars, Phobus and Demos
Circling,
And little cherished starlets: Alma gets her nails done
Before she goes up to see her
...