Thank God they are without hope,
these artists, who leave their souls on the canvas
in all the best galleries, where the last extant jazz combos play.
The food is sublime, the wine recognized,
the notes tied together will almost replace a ghost's life
with something that could turn from meaning at any moment.
Not as good, I'll admit, as a dog, gun and pickup truck
but there's a place in heaven for the rarefied.
Life is, to the chosen, an entourage
whose echoes become an homage,
the world as the one in the Louvre,
a prison, like all vaults of gold.
