there's a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I'm too tough for him, I say, stay in there, I'm not going to let anybody see you.

there's a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I pur whiskey on him and inhale cigarette smoke and the whores and the bartenders and the grocery clerks never know that he's in there.

there's a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I'm too tough for him, I say, stay down, do you want to mess me up? you want to screw up the works? you want to blow my book sales in Europe?

there's a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I'm too clever, I only let him out at night sometimes when everybody's asleep. I say, I know that you're there, so don't be sad. then I put him back, but he's singing a little in there, I haven't quite let him die and we sleep together like that with our secret pact and it's nice enough to make a man weep, but I don't weep, do you?

sway with me, everything sad -- madmen in stone houses without doors, lepers steaming love and song frogs trying to figure the sky; sway with me, sad things -- fingers split on a forge old age like breakfast shell used books, used people used flowers, used love I need you I need you I need you: it has run away like a horse or a dog, dead or lost or unforgiving.

I walked the streets it would have been ok to do that at times that are less lethal but I chose the most dangerous time to walk around, to laugh at myself, an hour after midnight.

A car crept up to me from behind like a cat or her, always like her. My shadow grew in length, it became huge, like a black black gaint. My eyes darted around like the hunted, there could be guns in that car there could be that death, parts of me have been seeking, a clean bullet through the skull but instead I started to run, as I turned my head and watched behind myself from time to time.

Meanwhile my mind was busy composing farewell letters, farewell you, farwell friends, farewell brothers, farewell sky, farwell electric bulbs at the windows, farewell clear eyes of babies,farewell dogs shitting in the grass.

My legs turned into a side street to escape. Escape, they have become good at escaping, escape from loneliness, escape from soundlessness, escape from the desires of the skin to sense, the lips to kiss, the arms to hold and the face to feel the warmth of her palms.

The car turned, I saw it turn and lights bore down the street, was that the moment of clarity I had been seeking? Thoughts, a hundred thoughts took off like gulls from cliffs, awesome thundering and screeching and I couldn't now, possibily seperate one from the other.

I ran across a chruch yard, Jesus of Nazareth beyond those stained windows, bleeding from his palms and feet, I joined him in the bleeding with the drip drip of blood of my heart. The car overtook me, and I found myself alive, but didn't I wanted to be dead in the first place? Why this dilly dallying? Is it to write poems? What is the use? Who is going to read them anyway? Whom can I read them to anyway?

The shops had signs outside, closed, closed, I stopped before one to catch my breath, I peered inside and saw upturned chairs on tables, the show had ended for the day, for the decade and perhaps for this life, you can never tell these things, when they begin and when they end and why? Who cares?

Cars go up and down the street like tanks, traffic lights blink, on off on off on off I am going crazy looking at this on off at all these things going on off, open close. I want to scream stay open, stay open, don't sleep, wake up wake up Don't fuck behind those doors, those open windows behind those curtains, come come will someone join me in listening to the woosh of water flowing in pipelines beneath the roads over the interminable silence of the night?

None answers, none even listens, none wants to talk to me. I come home, covered with sweat and press play on the answering machine. Old messages begin to play and her voice begins to turn like a cockscrew into my veins as tears that I held back all day start to flow all over me like cheap wine.

2002:08:05 02:00 Atlanta

I survived, the plan is to survive from day to day till I begin to live once more.