Robert Rorabeck Poems

Tired, where the hole in the heart buzzes,
And hairy men who tell me they are transcendentalists
Keep going down, down, down, chewing nature food,
As they point out the molasses cataracts,
...

Prettily the light is winnowed by the green
Fingers of the pine,

As if sorting out the empirical yarns from the
...

Expensive skeletons
Prance at the fair; their bones
Are tasseled with ribbons of air,
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Warm burn in the throat,
Horses out in the darkness with the wolves,
Innocence demystified:
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My parents live on the precipice....

My ears are ringing like maudlin wind-chimes,
From the last of the rum,
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None of my poems will survive;

They are all lost children blown to the sea.
After 4th of July,
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Scarred gray-
Today is a sepia holiday:
Knocking on your womb, wanting in:
Wanting to prick you with the mammalian barb,
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One thing bought the bottle,

One thing bought the scar,
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Teal monuments hover and vibrate like
Threatening broadcasts over the sloping greens
With little holes,
And little flags which wave like little surrenders,
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When I was a little boy I had similar fetishes,
I drew cars on paper, crayoned in- I cut them out,
Gave them names- hundreds.
Later, I did fast-food origami airplanes,
...