Robert Rorabeck Poems

The sea by the waves of nowhere- -
I am a corpse,
Drinking rum and eating pizza,
As the night fans out,
...

If I try again, as if taking myself to the graveyard,
Skipping the schools of light, to read here with the witches
Who never looked more beautiful,
The clouds gurgling a spell in the sky, and all of the little boys
...

Without looking up the gold of sheriffs,
This is the way that sometimes the goldfish have to survive
On Tuesdays,
Open mouthed, while the housewives’ Mexican cleaning ladies
...

Jasmine in a summer creak, pin wheeling,
Perfume as blanketed as if some snow lingered there
Invisible in the vermilion dew;
And tiny brown footsteps wimpling the grass over strewn
...

Abusing themselves by the other planets at their
Games,
The conquistadors falling down the hills like mumbling ants,
And nothing that was sure footed is any longer:
...

As a course, these people spill their desires far beneath
The sun:
This is the way they’ve been doing it since the world was
Young,
...

In the city lies the citizens laid quiet off the ejaculating of
The exhausting angels:
Those pretty demigods that put them to work, and then
Sent them back home again,
...

Already brown and coy,
I want to take you off your
Legs again,
And make you potbellied,
...

Combining the alchemy of paddleboats across the
Torpid acrobatics of the a living room’s holiday, waiting for
All the yawning mouths of lions
And water moccasins to close, for the stolen bicycles of
...

Orchards are made of men who
Cannot sleep—as fairies sleep in the cabbages and
Pumpkins:
And they drink teardrops of farmers who
...