Robert Rorabeck Poems

Alchemist
You begin a poem shirtless
In the landscaping outside of your
Home room class
...

Sensory cocoons the miners going into
Mines,
The moon rises up its lantern to see what she
Can steal as she finds what she can find:
...

Spokes on bicycles
Falling through her hair- as if birds
Realizing they are on holiday,
As the waves leap like dogs:
...

Sing into the open mouthed
Void of woe begone
After the fireworks of holidays have
Died
...

Cicadas echoing to their house wives
That is this
And this is that- as the cars drive by,
And the cat
...

Places where I sleep are
In you sleeping
Like children along a long highway
Resting their heads
...

You will get nothing from me,
But we can go out together and try to forgive
Each other through out the day:
Here the dogs are leaping over the fires
...

There is nothing to it- the minnows are
Shut up and whisperless in the vanished sunlight
Of the stream,
The words for her are curled up or boxed
...

There is the carport waiting patiently
Even as the rain floods the weedy gutters,
The unused lawnmower brushing against
The rebar,
...

Impossible leopard laying upon a
Suburban lawn I used to visit midway between
School- the sun a torch passing over
The airplanes- my heart beating like a paper
...