Red lavender tea,
a book of poetry, "Inaugercy,"
while creosote and windrose
perfume the desert rain--
it's spring, again, the cactus
spikes are growing red
and stories of redemption
fill the air--
but they never are
as interesting
in the end
compared to the way they began,
with all the ways of men
to evade grace,
how they always lie like hell to tell the truth.
The sky whitens,
like a miracle on cue
a curtain opens.
He has, mostly with his jaw,
channelled a person
who doesn't exist--
we call that acting,
but is that not
what we all
have been doing all along?
Dancing with the dreams
that float there in the room
like angels in the air, invisible
and unaware?
And all to ask one question:
what is worse,
to be a great one
when you are nothing,
or to be nothing
when you're a great one?
He shuttles as a remnant
between the living
that dares not name,
and the naming
that dares not live.
There's only pain in him
that they recognize
themselves as lost
when he entertains.
"It's life, unfortunately"
that makes crying
transcendent,
that turns us into Gods
at the sight
of our own play--
to redeem it as pain
and pull, ever ruthlessly, away.
There's something saved
when the booze is
tossed away,
some residue of memory
that finds a value
in something lost.
