Robert Rorabeck - The Conquered Conquistador

Robert’s eyes are red: he is taking off- You
Can get so much of him for free,
And the wind is a dying wife who once kissed the
Upturned lips of his fingers,
But afterwards felt so guilty she went downward
To the sea’s cemetery to sit in the dying caesuras;
And I’ve played baseball in the red diamond
Dirt
Way before high school, with no one else called out,
And the lamps were breaking,
His parents selling watermelons at the washed out
Cabaret, and girls once named Sharon could
Never speak, could never sell all that they were worth
Way back in the attributing blue-greenness’ of
Wellington’s insouciant estuaries;
Her fingers were so smooth and cool upon the wet
Clay that I wanted nothing more that to pretend to capitalize
On being her ghost, to walk out into the new disney world
She’d bake for me, and we’d set off,
Something surreal fantasy and horny, even if it wasn’t
Aloud, oh god, if you are or were still a good god,
And not a dentist, you’d let me; and this poem is for the
Girl who tastes the grapes, who smells the unforgotten
Homesteads of my mother in Colorado; and I have failed
Her and died the conquered conquistador before the granite cross
Before there was established real estate or boys with
Dreams of franchises; but I still remember how I tipped
My glass during the old school bohemian play, skipped
Across the world and defeated the cops, and thought of your
Angelic bone structures, while the better muses died in
South Africa, and we threw our balls, the harems of young
Politicians, though I still do this for your maiden name,
Even though I am no longer foolish enough to name it after you.

Robert Rorabeck

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