homage to vallejo

sad blonde skeleton
tawny muscled jaw awry
once-upon-a-time-friend,
little susie, amphetamined
girl coked & joking in my bed
sick brain still on fire
still hour'ed and houris'ed and she left
for reasons known only
in the trenches. Girl,
your calcium mouth turned
away from love (you live)
in stone-fleshed womb
a life gestated into, time run
backward like 1/2 inch tape
(are you)
remembering remembering remembering
these minor emotional inconveniences
looped now in a figure 8?
somebody needed to tell me
the truth you never did
o in a circuit maybe yes
beyond this petty need & our
psychic destiny ~ it's gone now
this story, rubio y triste

(The Peruvian Cesar Vellejo is the great unrecognized poet of the 20th century. A line of his, "esquelito, rubio y triste" followed me around for years. It means sad, blonde skeleton. This piece is, again, from 1977. The discussion is continuous in those years; the attempt to build some sort of structure from the wreckage of my heart. Sometimes the damage turns out to be permanent in some odd fashion. For me the damage affected the work. So much seems lost in the melodies of these pieces. I can almost hear my younger self in them, his tone, his fire. Sad to say I never really got past this damage.)