I Wonder If The Artist Ever Lives

... And My Love Stays Bitterly Glowing, Spasms Of It Will Not Sleep, And I Am Helpless And Thirsty And Need Shade But There Is No One To Cover Me- Not Even God.

I Find Now, Swallowing One Teaspoon Of Pain, That It Drops Downward To The Past Where It Mixes With Last Year’s Cupful And Downward Into A Decade’s Quart And Downward Into A Lifetime’s Ocean. I Alternate Treading Water And Deadman’s Float.

You Cutting The Lawn, Fixing The Machines, All This Leprous Day And Then More Vodka, More Soda And The Pond Forgiving Our Bodies, The Pond Sucking Out The Throb.

God Has A Brown Voice, As Soft And Full As Beer.

No One To Hate Except The Slim Fish Of Memory That Slides In And Out Of My Brain.