Meaningless Radiance Poem by Robert Rorabeck

The mother is sleeping in western California
Just inches from the sea,
Sleeping like a virginal epitaph to her
Adolescent roller rink,

And the stars are like a rock garden,
And the constellations a petrified zoo,
And the earth revolves like a tourist trying
To breastfeed a spiteful past,

The eons are laughing as they drive across
Borders,
Evolving the brows of rubber tramps nodding
At intersections of busted Pharisees,

In the New Mexico desert the casinos sprawl
Like aboriginal shortcuts lit up for executions,
Looked upon by rough iron dinosaurs,
And neon petroglyphs,

A giant azure steed raises like unearthed lightning,
Brushing the bellies of the commercial airlines,
The leapfrogging stewardesses with chardonnay eyelashes,
And eyes of vesper obedience,

Condescending the traffic of anthills,
The visiting feathers blown by a puckering Fury,
Out across the Grand Canyon’s sun downing polygamies,
And the apoplectic rattle of the diamond tour buses,

Like a thought of a tongue yawning from
The window of a strange but vivid highway,
The canine foreknowledge of an arisen storm,
Through which the dust devils dance in meaningless radiance.