for Jack Hirschman (1933-2021) The words always came running out of your mouth Tumbling, galloping Pushing against one another as they took the final turn The last hundred meters Where form is lost & everyone becomes a futurist Sacred words split into syllables & break apart Yours never had wings affixed to them Only the hammer & sickle Harnessed with gumshoe & printing press Long gray hair alighting from your form & that gait you had As if you’d been riding motorcycles all night long Bowlegged, rickety even Probably from kicking fascists in your sleep & the other death-headed sorts You had the sparkle, loud & lavish laughter Bellowing even A clamor to stoke awake the fires inside & push against the fulcrum of the dreadful state In time, overtaken by the glow & tether of your arcanes Where life mingled with apparitions It’s how you made memory & the present inseparable Obsecrating all those pages turned Dog-eared & brittle after a stretch To lay words before us, like crumbs Four thousand pages later Leaving a richer trail I remember the raddled years When you lived like a pauper Grinning wide & showing off your crooked teeth More beautiful than any others The final words I whispered to you That was wonderful Are still ringing in your ears Though vibrating waves of compression & rarefactions are dust now Just in case, let me say it again That was wonderful |
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