18—After Rothenberg

Poet
man almost lost his song   corrupted as he no longer
walks
between worlds, he almost lost ability to exist in
dreams   & bring back news he found there, all

Ashes the images he found there, ashes which
fall from human carcass chimney smoke
around modern-day subtle Auschwitz    petition
him  to  scream  this  story
as if it were the world's last story.
He almost lost song his
walks between dream world and waking world, his
singing voice atrophies  & ashes fall from
above, his hair is gray  he knows not how to stop
them & the carnivore's carnage they represent.

The
poet  almost lost his song
is   the chant of the head w/o a heart, his
dreaming self atrophies as ashes of the new Auschwitz fall
about him & his somnambulistic tendencies
a tendency to lose his sight his
poet in sight his body song heart-filled
& delirious, blood-filled & dangerous, he
calls
out  & only open-mouthed silent screams fill the cave.

Soon he can no longer sing
he may have lost his singing muscles
will no longer tell the history of the future will
have left his song in the lost medicine bag will have
forgotten how his singing muscles once worked, forgotten
who looks back in morning mirror, forgotten
he was a singer of the blood-filled dirge, forgotten who he
is.

8.18.01
3451 Ozanam, Chicago
line from Poems for the Millennium 2
pg 853