one of my favorite stories
is the one about the band
on the Titanic
and how they just played on
as the ship went down
and arctic death
drew them closer.
there's something about continuing on
insistent upon music
even as all odds are stacked
against you
and there is no chance for
anything
but panic
or a few more songs.

I have been waiting for the end of civilization
since I was in high school.
now that I'm older I don't think
I'll live to
see it,
but at this very moment
with the courts having finally selected
america's president in the year 2001
with the molten memory of the final Woodstock concert
with the smoke and the lights and the beats and the
cancer and the hatred rising up to stain
the roof of the night
I can sit here brooding
and warm my hands on the beginning
of its burning.

as the ship goes down
many will will pray,
many will prepare
for what they'd been taught
in church,
many will scream bestial begging
for conclusion to not collect them.

it's always been the certainty of death
and the uncertainty of the beyond
that have made me
so insistent
upon pleasure in life
and so exhausted
from excavations of beauty
and godmind moments.

so as this ship begins to sink
and madness storms from stern to bow
watch terror take its turn,
watch life again suddenly
become
more valuable than gold.

whip out your shit
and masturbate to the triumphant trumpets
bellowing through the truth of the tragedy.

I will be sounding the last notes
with the band.
maybe something by Handel.
with my shoes untied
and my mind gone ahead of me
we will sing and laugh our way
down
through the hopelessness of everything.

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