Nobody here but me and the words, so I can say
what I want to how I need to to keep away
the mortal X-caliber blues.
You haunted me two hours in the rain,
Frank Stanford, yesterday. That empty pain
which jigs and rips and screws,
that vacuum, that why, and why, and why keep on,
that insupportable sway and creak and groan
before the pilings break.
I am the fire on the field, you said, or might have said.
I am the razor at your throat, the blood on your head,
the rust of shadows, the kingsnake
dressed as lightning, the smoke in the cotton patch.
I had been reading that special issue, natch—
oh the low funereal tone,
the memorial, dismal, and eloquent praise.
You’ll generate your share of these essays,
I think, as time goes on.
I threw the magazine out the window of my van
on the way home later. No doubt you were the man,
the actor without fear.
I hope you got what you wanted from your few seconds of dying,
good buddy. But you don’t help me. I’m just trying
to keep on breathing here.
