Elegy I

Gated reverb finger snaps and sizzling high-hat sixteenth-notes

Choral bass drum thump on the downbeat

Punctuates the sawing organ swells

Then recedes over a writhing sea of bodies

Consumed in ecstatic bacchanal

And the breaths that hiss among the maze

Hot and wet and alive …

Run

Run sweat colored paste,

Neon glitter paste;

Rubbed on; wiped off;

Stain collar, tights,

Black leggings.

Raga pop,

Reggae hate,

Dub dumb,

Butt rock,

Raw rap,

Tonal slurry by the side of the sea

Staining high water marks on resorts

Casting shadows.

Blood on the streets flow like the pulse of a canon winding down into fermata,

The conductor holds his hand aloft for all of time,

From here to eternity.

Some fools down here seem to think that he’s about to start up again in four-four!

Because they haven’t got names

And I can’t remember what day of the week it is.

Cut 'em up and burn the bodies and shoot them down and blow up the streets.

What’s it matter, what’s any of this matter before or after or ever.

(“Four Dead in O-hi-o!” Ha!)

Cut me up on the streets for my father to see, like my mother feared.

Cut them up right there on the streets

A proper sacrifice to make up for lost time,

To make up for all this nonsense.

(“Four Dead in O-hi-o!” is right!)

When you find yourself under the juggernaut,

Just remember the refrain:

“Four Dead in O-hi-o.” …

And these poor ballads with their hang dog stories

Have to make do for proper dirges in the age of death,

The age of Moloch, who comes for us children.

Fifty-Eight in Par-a-dise!

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