At the foothills of vintage age
you feel perceptibly less somber
for there are only meager remains
of mostly forgotten days -
      little to smile, rue or cry for
and an amorphous
yet obligingly finite future -
      trifling to put together or fight for.

So dear Chandra:
here is a congratulation:
It must be awesome -
this imminent privilege of geriatrics
and this stolen bit of transient freedom;
      the real laissez-faire to yearn
      and to die for.
timorously cajoled
from time’s exacting, puritan dictum.

It's the days when you don’t cry,
But you don’t smile either.

It’s the days when you’re quieter than usual,
And people notice.

It’s the days when you aren’t quite thinking about anything.

But if someone asked you what was wrong,
You wouldn’t know where to start.

you may not believe it
but there are people
who go through life with
very little
friction or
distress.
they dress well, eat
well, sleep well.
they are contented with
their family
life.
they have moments of
grief
but all in all
they are undisturbed
and often feel
very good.
and when they die
it is an easy
death, usually in their
sleep.
you may not believe
it
but such people do
exist.
but I am not one of
them.
oh no, I am not one
of them,
I am not even near
to being
one of
them
but they are
there
and I am
here.

(After Lorca)

Now in Vienna there are ten pretty women.
There's a shoulder where death comes to cry.
There's a lobby with nine hundred windows.
There's a tree where the doves go to die.
There's a piece that was torn from the morning,
and it hangs in the Gallery of Frost—
Ay, ay ay ay
Take this waltz, take this waltz,
take this waltz with the clamp on its jaws.

I want you, I want you, I want you
on a chair with a dead magazine.
In the cave at the tip of the lily,
in some hallway where love's never been.
On a bed where the moon has been sweating,
in a cry filled with footsteps and sand—
Ay, ay ay ay
Take this waltz, take this waltz,
take its broken waist in your hand.

This waltz, this waltz, this waltz, this waltz
with its very own breath
of brandy and death,
dragging its tail in the sea.

There's a concert hall in Vienna
where your mouth had a thousand reviews.
There's a bar where the boys have stopped talking,
they've been sentenced to death by the blues.
Ah, but who is it climbs to your picture
with a garland of freshly cut tears?
Ay, ay ay ay
Take this waltz, take this waltz,
take this waltz, it's been dying for years.

There's an attic where children are playing,
where I've got to lie down with you soon,
in a dream of Hungarian lanterns,
in the mist of some sweet afternoon.
And I'll see what you've chained to your sorrow,
all your sheep and your lilies of snow—
Ay, ay ay ay
Take this waltz, take this waltz
with its "I'll never forget you, you know!"

And I'll dance with you in Vienna,
I'll be wearing a river's disguise.
The hyacinth wild on my shoulder
my mouth on the dew of your thighs.
And I'll bury my soul in a scrapbook,
with the photographs there and the moss.
And I'll yield to the flood of your beauty,
my cheap violin and my cross.
And you'll carry me down on your dancing
to the pools that you lift on your wrist—
O my love, O my love
Take this waltz, take this waltz,
it's yours now. It's all that there is.

I’ll date
A thousand men
Until I find one
That makes me
Forget you

If I were an
albatross
long-winged and
debt-less
I would turn
asymmetrical
retrices
towards a
hurricane,
three or higher,
and quell my
restless beating
in sky-whipped
fury, in
surge of
grasping, tidal
fingers
and if white-feathered
breast met the
waves, sunk
wet and stinking
into deep crevasse
then it would be
with release
for World’s
End is less a
place
than a
letting go.