Becalmed
Night descends on whining knees
The reckless children roam below
Fearless as ants though less purposeful
Prolonging their giddy play in
An epiphany of youth and death
A purple wine upon the shallow hills
Historic Hudson nuzzling by the land
Becalmed in Tarrytown as I too am
Seeking music’s absolution for my silence
Bach’s thirty variations on a smile
My sole companions in retreat
I know my life is incomplete
Elsewhere when I choose to listen
The wounded howl the hungry moan
In tongues I dare not understand
I feel their plight but not their grief
Instead guilt nestles close at hand
I call it my inheritance
Here in my safe encampment
Powerless and exempt
What would it take to fire my blood
Now slow as doubt and coursing cold
How might I raise refusal to an art
And learn to cast denial out
But here the blinds are neatly shut
And I in fictive consolations bound
Nightly dally with my electric slut
Who strokes my twitching conscience
I have heard the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs
Music for an age of discontent
Which spends its failing hours
Divining what the god of evil meant
I fear it is beyond my ken
Not how my last days are bent
Oh old young now then
Sad happy women men
Whom I must touch before I die
No music can redeem me
1/6-7/9/95, 12/15-12/16/95, 4/8/98, 6/11/98, 7/12/98, 8/9-8/10/98, 6/23/00
Copyright 1995, 1998, 2000 by Maurice Leiter
Posted with permission.
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