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my life.

I sit here

73 years old

knowing I have been badly

fooled,

picking at my teeth

with a toothpick

which

breaks.

dying should come easy:

like a freight train you

don’t hear when

your back is

turned.

sun coming down

no one is sorry I am leaving,

not even I;

but there should be a minstrel

or at least a glass of wine.

it bothers the young most, I think:

an unviolent slow death.

still it makes any man dream;

you wish for an old sailing ship,

the white salt-crusted sail

and the sea shaking out hints of immortality.

sea in the nose

sea in the hair

sea in the marrow, in the eyes

and yes, there in the chest.

will we miss

the love of a woman or music or food

or the gambol of the great mad muscled

horse, kicking clods and destinies

high and away

in just one moment of the sun coming down?

but now it’s my turn

and there’s no majesty in it

because there was no majesty

before it

and each of us, like worms bitten out of apples,

deserves no reprieve.

death enters my mouth

and snakes along my teeth

and I wonder if I am frightened of

this voiceless, unsorrowful dying that is

like the drying of a rose?

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?

my last winter

I see this final storm as nothing very serious in the sight of

the world;

there are so many more important things to worry about and to

consider.

I see this final storm as nothing very special in the sight of

the world

and it shouldn’t be thought of as special.

other storms have been much greater, more dramatic.

I see this final storm approaching and calmly

my mind waits.

I see this final storm as nothing very serious in the sight of

the world.

the world and I have seldom agreed on most

matters but

now we can agree.

so bring it on, bring on this final storm.

I have patiently waited for too long now.

like a dolphin

dying has its rough edge.

no escaping now.

the warden has his eye on me.

his bad eye.

I’m doing hard time now.

in solitary.

locked down.

I’m not the first nor the last.

I’m just telling you how it is.

I sit in my own shadow now.

the face of the people grows dim.

the old songs still play.

hand to my chin, I dream of

nothing while my lost childhood

leaps like a dolphin

in the frozen sea.

the bluebird

there’s a bluebird in my heart that

wants to get out

but I’m too tough for him,

I say, stay in there, I’m not going

to let anybody see

you.

there’s a bluebird in my heart that

wants to get out

but I pour whiskey on him and inhale

cigarette smoke

and the whores and the bartenders

and the grocery clerks

never know that

he’s

in there.

there’s a bluebird in my heart that

wants to get out

but I’m too tough for him

I say,

stay down, do you want to mess

me up?

you want to screw up the

works?

you want to blow my book sales in

Europe?

there’s a bluebird in my heart that

wants to get out

but I’m too clever, I only let him out

at night sometimes

when everybody’s asleep.

I say, I know that you’re there,

so don’t be

sad.

then I put him back,

but he’s singing a little

in there, I haven’t quite let him

die

and we sleep together like

that

with our

secret pact

and it’s nice enough to

make a man

weep, but I don’t

weep, do

you?

if we take—

if we take what we can see—

the engines driving us mad,

lovers finally hating;

this fish in the market

staring upward into our minds;

flowers rotting, flies web-caught;

riots, roars of caged lions,

clowns in love with dollar bills,

nations moving people like pawns;

daylight thieves with beautiful