Robert Rorabeck Poems

Ferris-wheels of diamond mice run
Around the salty pan,

Laughing men as tall as houses
...

Dandelions in a basin of light with
Purple and blue ants fighting each other:
Dandelions as soft as the lips of tourists underneath
Commuter airlines;
...

They give good rhymes to cars, and in passing,
Their daughters look really beautiful; and didn’t I fail to
Mention that all of them may be moving to Georgia
To convolute with the wavering harems of indistinguishable
...

Wayward bodies of men somnambulate stealing
The tired, black-lipped kisses of housewives in parks,
So far away from their trailer hoods of dreams,
Like something of a decrepit wish the sea has washed to someone
...

Beautiful frogs are farting in
Beds of droopy chrysanthemums.
Chartreuse and poisonous, they are waiting
For her sombulent march, to cling to
...

This poetry is undressed,
And her eyes stare through the window,
Stare down the long horizon,
Eclipsing the subtle bergs, the pawn shops,
...

Hopscotch is easy if you’re a tourist,
And the sea is easy if you’re a fish,
But your eyes I’ll never forget,
Like a woman singing in French-
...

Bodies push as they feel:
Bodies sweat and move: Bodies in cars, bodies in
Coffins, bodies in homes have so much to prove:
Bodies arising like flowers for your senses:
...

Resting again- again, in the valleys
Of windmills who know of
The keenest pleasures-
They lay in one spot and move and move:
...

Wordless Calliope- what are you,
Standing there
As a blue monument: what do you mean
After so much tragedy;
...