Thursday, December 12, 2013

Resurgence

why can’t they hear it
are they deaf? blind?
why are so many
resistant to change?
I love the seasons you
pass through like a
private investigator
rummaging through
old steamer trunks
looking for a phone
number that was
written on the back
of a matchstick

I remember Casablanca
Bob and I remember
Dooley Wilson singing,
singing for you like
you were Humphrey Bogart
I know you wanted to be him
stranded in some petrified forest
making time with the waitresses
like they actually understood you
and knew what it meant to be a legend
and not give a shit

you have always told us where
it was at and you still are telling us
why it is important to take a stand
because it’s not dark yet, but it’s
getting there and I’m afraid to let go
Bob I’m afraid you won’t remember
how we sheltered each other from the
impossible storms in both our imaginative
and poetic visions; how we both agreed
Vincent knew what he was up against
and that if he hadn’t taken his life we would
not be as acquainted with our own desires nor
would we give so much of a damn

the paint pulls us in as we turn our backs on
pressure cooker romance and all the self-medicated
responses she attempted before I convinced her
it’s no good being a victim when your back is
up against the wall anyhow and anyway you
slice it you are still going to have to enter the
eye of the storm before it is too late and all
the usual suspects are rounded up and later
dispensed with because every one of them
had a foolproof alibi, everyone but you Bob
your alibi was almost unbelievable in all its
deliberate and desperate fury

I wish we could shield each other from contempt
and I wish so much more was understood without
words or gestures of faith that faithless pedestrians
move through like ghosts with no fixed destination …

Charles Cicirella 5.6.03 (For Bob Dylan)

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