Robert Rorabeck - Painful Hours

Here is where the sidelines end
Upon the mystified avenues I walk alone.
There are no spectators to worry over
This laboring heart, which she once said
Was without emotion, though I
Can hear it now beating out this dirge,
That futile song which pumps through
The lonely blood. Beyond the stadium
Where the great athletes sport for
Fine women in new dresses dawned like
Speckled coats of awakening fawns,
I labor away in an unjustified direction
Naked of hope, my wrists bared liked
Mollusks from their shells as time
Showers down the gravity like arrows
Cutting days into me, in the cells of my
Empirical carriage I pass the painful hours.

Robert Rorabeck

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