now
live
and listening to
the reassurance
the kindness
of this unexpected
SYMPHONY OF TRIUMPH:
a new life.
no leaders, please
invent yourself and then reinvent yourself,
don’t swim in the same slough.
invent yourself and then reinvent yourself
and
stay out of the clutches of mediocrity.
invent yourself and then reinvent yourself,
change your tone and shape so often that they can
never
categorize you.
reinvigorate yourself and
accept what is
but only on the terms that you have invented
and reinvented.
be self-taught.
and reinvent your life because you must;
it is your life and
its history
and the present
belong only to
you.
everything hurts
when you get as old as I am you can’t help thinking
about death; you know it’s getting closer with every tick of
your watch: an old fart like me can go in a second,
have a stroke, or cancer, or
etc.
etc.
while the young think about locating a piece of ass
the old think about … death .
still,
age makes you appreciate small things:
like, say, you look at a grapefruit like you never
quite looked at one before, or at a bridge, or at a dog or even
just at the sidewalk, you realize you’ve never really seen them clearly
before.
and all the other things around you suddenly seem … new.
the world is now a flower, though sometimes an ugly
one.
and driving the boulevards, you watch people in their
cars and you think: each of them must finally
die.
it’s strange, isn’t it, that each of them must finally die?
then (I often get lucky) I will forget about death. I will
forget that I am … old.
I will feel 45 again. (I’ve always felt 45, even when
I was 16.)
as somewhere somebody waters a small potted plant,
as a plane crashes with a fierce explosion into a mountain,
as deep in the sea strange creatures move,
the poet remains manacled to his helpless
self.
husk
now I watch other men fight
for money and glory
on television
while I sit on an old couch
in the night
a wife and 5 or 6 cats
nearby.
now I sit and watch other men fight
for money and glory.
hell,
I never fought for money.
maybe I should have
but I was never that good
at it—
only sometimes
brave.
is it too late for a comeback?
a comeback from where?
now I sit and watch other men fight
for money and glory.
I sit with a soda and 3 fig bars
as the world curls and goes up in
flame around
me.
my song
ample
consternation,
plentiful
pain
restless days
and
sleepless
nights
always fighting
with all your
heart and soul
so as not
to fail at
living.
who could ask
for anything
more?
cancer
half-past nowhere
alone
in the crumbling
tower of myself
stumbling in this the
darkest
hour
the last gamble has been
lost
as I
reach
for
bone
silence.
blue
blue fish, the blue night, a blue knife—
everything is blue.
and my cats are blue: blue fur, blue claws,
blue whiskers, blue eyes.
my bed lamp shines
blue.
inside, my blue heart pumps blue blood.
my fingernails, my toenails are
blue
and around my bed floats a
blue ghost.
even the taste inside my mouth is
blue.
and I am alone and dying and
blue.
twilight musings
the drifting of the mind.
the slow loss, the leaking away.
one’s demise is not very interesting.
from my bed I watch 3 birds through the east window:
one coal black, one dark brown, the
other yellow.
as night falls I watch the red lights on the bridge blink on and off.
I am stretched out in bed with the covers up to my chin.
I have no idea who won at the racetrack today.
I must go back into the hospital tomorrow.
why me?
why not?
mind and heart
unaccountably we are alone
forever alone
and it was meant to be
that way,
it was never meant
to be any other way—
and when the death struggle
begins
the last thing I wish to see
is
a ring of human faces
hovering over me—
better just my old friends,
the walls of my self,
let
live
and listening to
the reassurance
the kindness
of this unexpected
SYMPHONY OF TRIUMPH:
a new life.
no leaders, please
invent yourself and then reinvent yourself,
don’t swim in the same slough.
invent yourself and then reinvent yourself
and
stay out of the clutches of mediocrity.
invent yourself and then reinvent yourself,
change your tone and shape so often that they can
never
categorize you.
reinvigorate yourself and
accept what is
but only on the terms that you have invented
and reinvented.
be self-taught.
and reinvent your life because you must;
it is your life and
its history
and the present
belong only to
you.
everything hurts
when you get as old as I am you can’t help thinking
about death; you know it’s getting closer with every tick of
your watch: an old fart like me can go in a second,
have a stroke, or cancer, or
etc.
etc.
while the young think about locating a piece of ass
the old think about … death .
still,
age makes you appreciate small things:
like, say, you look at a grapefruit like you never
quite looked at one before, or at a bridge, or at a dog or even
just at the sidewalk, you realize you’ve never really seen them clearly
before.
and all the other things around you suddenly seem … new.
the world is now a flower, though sometimes an ugly
one.
and driving the boulevards, you watch people in their
cars and you think: each of them must finally
die.
it’s strange, isn’t it, that each of them must finally die?
then (I often get lucky) I will forget about death. I will
forget that I am … old.
I will feel 45 again. (I’ve always felt 45, even when
I was 16.)
as somewhere somebody waters a small potted plant,
as a plane crashes with a fierce explosion into a mountain,
as deep in the sea strange creatures move,
the poet remains manacled to his helpless
self.
husk
now I watch other men fight
for money and glory
on television
while I sit on an old couch
in the night
a wife and 5 or 6 cats
nearby.
now I sit and watch other men fight
for money and glory.
hell,
I never fought for money.
maybe I should have
but I was never that good
at it—
only sometimes
brave.
is it too late for a comeback?
a comeback from where?
now I sit and watch other men fight
for money and glory.
I sit with a soda and 3 fig bars
as the world curls and goes up in
flame around
me.
my song
ample
consternation,
plentiful
pain
restless days
and
sleepless
nights
always fighting
with all your
heart and soul
so as not
to fail at
living.
who could ask
for anything
more?
cancer
half-past nowhere
alone
in the crumbling
tower of myself
stumbling in this the
darkest
hour
the last gamble has been
lost
as I
reach
for
bone
silence.
blue
blue fish, the blue night, a blue knife—
everything is blue.
and my cats are blue: blue fur, blue claws,
blue whiskers, blue eyes.
my bed lamp shines
blue.
inside, my blue heart pumps blue blood.
my fingernails, my toenails are
blue
and around my bed floats a
blue ghost.
even the taste inside my mouth is
blue.
and I am alone and dying and
blue.
twilight musings
the drifting of the mind.
the slow loss, the leaking away.
one’s demise is not very interesting.
from my bed I watch 3 birds through the east window:
one coal black, one dark brown, the
other yellow.
as night falls I watch the red lights on the bridge blink on and off.
I am stretched out in bed with the covers up to my chin.
I have no idea who won at the racetrack today.
I must go back into the hospital tomorrow.
why me?
why not?
mind and heart
unaccountably we are alone
forever alone
and it was meant to be
that way,
it was never meant
to be any other way—
and when the death struggle
begins
the last thing I wish to see
is
a ring of human faces
hovering over me—
better just my old friends,
the walls of my self,
let
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