Robert Rorabeck Poems

Doors divide the emptiness of two places:
Then there is a without and a within,
And her eyes swinging in the lullaby of her deep
Alma’s
...

It is always appalling to think up the weathers over
The far titted fields,
While the cars filled with tourists make their merry and are
Always growing up to take on
...

Putting words together like playing,
Like guns
Over the landscapes where there is no airconditioning
As there is no returning of this love:
...

If life happens to slip away
Over the bushes where the little girls have had
At play,
Now all the time blushing and runaway:
...

Bodies pounding hidden chests where ribs always
Happen to grow two by two:
Like sisters and brothers looking in at the red organs
Of this operations zoo:
...

My hands were on her throat just once:
Perhaps they did not pressure her enough because now we
Are just friends,
Alma: Oh, Alma, aren’t we just friends, just the way the swing-sets
...

Another night alone into this world
And I am feeling fine and thinking of Alma:
How she must be cozied up to her husband by now:
Why her children are softly breathing so far
...

Mountains are as sure of themselves as I am of
You,
And now I am hitting the bottle hard Alma,
The serpents sleep in the folds of a rainbow left
...

You said that you only wanted to be friends
But then we kissed
And I hurt myself even further along the journey:
And now look at all it has all turned out:
...

Eaten by ghosts, or eaten by grizzly bears:
The night finally grows up and is unhappy about itself-
The night finally gets out of its chair or swing,
And has to go home to confront the mirrors, or that isn’t any of all
...