Metaphor as Addiction

Say goodbye to politics Hollywood,
Goodbye to jazz, I was always sadder than it was—
My dreams were larger, they cared more
Than the final player on the roster—
Can I ever stand inside myself?
Even when I've lost another, forever?
Can I ever give up writing other's scenes?

The streets, made of belief, are filled
With people who have nothing to believe in—
What goes up always leaves too much below,
What goes down always catches on a trigger—
Let the baritone learn Hebrew,
Let the prayers appear as ash—
We think of them as lives, with endless eyes.
This will never be forgotten,
There will only be more victims,
And we never will imagine
Those who'd pull the banal switch.

The thunder up ahead, so innocent and small,
The landscape never learns,
For all that we can teach it:
The horrors of compassion,
The things we thought we wanted,
Once louder than the heavens,
Now darker than the sky.

You, Michelle, on your birthday
Are like the Persian latticework
Across from the Millennium Hotel,
The once and martyred towers
Rebuilt cell by cell.
It all will pass so quickly,
The things we hold so deeply.
The life we shared felt nothing like
The books that we call memory.