2 a.m.
the time they used to run me out
of the West coast
bars
but now I am listening to
Shostakovich's Tenth
which has about everything
needed to keep you
going
against the dung
tide.
I've got to admit that I
cheat on the game, I
borrow strength from
various magic creatures of
the earth
such as
Dmitri
he's here now
and I marvel at his blaring
gut courage.
I, myself, have gotten
letters about my writings
from people who have
said--whether it is true
or not--that my crap
kept them from tossing
it in.
letters from jails,
madhouses,
people balancing at
the edge of the
dark.
but I never wrote to save
them,
I wrote to save my own
dumb
befuddled
ass.--
screaming and sometimes
laughing from the
slashing pits of
one hundred percent
zero--sometimes the
billions of mankind,
sometimes one person,
one thing,
one moment,
one anything, or
everything or not
enough,
or just your hands
hanging from your
arms,
or just an empty
vase or a
dead bird
or the relentless
drone of
nothingness.
(drink to that
last).
so now
Shostakovich's
Tenth,
2 a.m. closing
time
but not here
tonight,
Dmitri spins
it out
and I borrow from his
immense psyche,
I feel better and better
and better
listening to him,
he cures me onward,
each drink
finer,
my stupid wounds
closing,
the Tenth goes on
circling these
walls,
I owe this bastard,
I will never be able
to write him,
what a grand snail,
what a bloody
cockroach,
this boy,
this man,
this dead Russian,
the Tenth has finished
now
as I was writing,
oh,
I will sleep,
I will sleep now,
next to my wife
and our
seven
cats,
this is the way
it should be,
this is the flame
in the eye of the
vulture,
this is the purple
ocean of
glory,
this is so much
better than it
used to be,
that old
2 a.m.
shut out from
the mirror
and the 250
bottles of glass,
unused,
walking through
the alone
night,
murdered again.
once
more.
