why exchange a gift from

the gods for a handful of

dung?

such beautiful men

self-castrated

as if they couldn’t bear

their grand luck,

retiring to the dumb

dark

before it reached

them.

welcome darkness

the door closes and you

grin at

death.

all pretense is gone

now.

what remains is

the similarity of night

and morning;

the victimization of

time and

space;

the befuddled

proclamations;

the borrowed

assertions;

the righteous

enactments;

the camouflage;

a common

denominator.

the oldest horror

show.

the murder of the

sun.

the last of

life.

Bach

I’m

listening to a work of his

recorded in

1923.

I was 3 years old

then

but Bach was

ageless.

I am soon going

to die

but I feel no

remorse about

this.

Bach and I are

in this

room

together.

his music now

lifts me beyond

pain

and my

pathetic

self-interest.

Bach, thanks to you,

I have no

living

friends.

great jazz

you keep getting an idea

that something is going

to happen,

you can feel it in the

edge of your

fingernails

it’s climbing the

walls

as the jazz group keeps

working,

going from one chorus to

the next,

just sliding, rising,

it’s a sweet hustle,

you drink without getting

drunk,

smoke endless

cigarettes at your

corner table.

the energy keeps

building.

smoke, drink and

listen.

the city is here,

the world is

here.

if there’s an answer,

it’s here.

god damn.

shame to leave

even to piss.

you hold it.

something’s going

to happen.

it’s like the 20s in

Kansas City.

baby, baby, I’m

going to stay here

forever,

they’re going to

have to slide my

bones off this

chair,

it’s happening,

it’s happening,

at

last, at last, at

last…

a moment

for Wagner the gods of Valhalla also burn in the

flames,

as here tonight

I am sober,

my horse won the last race

as I was driving in on the freeway;

it is the somber time just before

midnight,

Wagner roaring out of the

radio,

I have come to pause

before the agony and the magic

of another man,

long dead,

he’s here with me

now,

it’s frightening and

wonderful,

then one of my cats walks

in,

looks at me from the

floor

with his glorious

eyes,

he then leaps up on the

desk

and stands before me,

Wagner bouncing

off of him

and I reach out

and touch the

cat.

impossible.

wondrous

all right, lay on the rain.

lay the rain on.

lay it on.

on the roof.

I hear it on the roof.

I know that it soothes

old wounds and

new.

then too,

one always remembers

the times when there

was no roof

and it

rained.

one does not forget

that.

it will rain all this

night

and we will sleep

transfixed by the dark

water

as our blood runs through

our fragile

life.

lay the rain on.

the divine

broth.

fact

careful poetry

and careful

people

last