William Burroughs is dying.

 

The sun creeps up behind a gray cap of

cloud like approaching the scene of a crime.

The calendar on the cigarette pack says Friday

April 11/1986.  The clock, 6:A.M.  Sometimes

everything is so appropriate you can hardly

stand it.

 

Jean Genet is dying.

 

I warned several people.  False spring is

a danger in these climates.  The snow is cut

into parking lots and roof tops like

hieroglyphs.  A bird begins singing.  It sounds

like a music box playing in ruins, in spite

of itself.

 

Samuel Beckett is dying.

 

and tomorrow or the day after there will be a

run on his books like to make the booksellers

beam with disaster.  Who sounds more

convinced, the bird singing or me and my

warnings?  You remember how it was a few

years ago when it looked like anything could

happen.  False spring is a danger in these

climates.

 

Elizabeth Smart is dead.

 

I have these memories.  First I read my

poems then later she reads hers.  It was like

a marriage ceremony that takes fifty years to

say I do.  I am dying to say it.  It is a crappy

day with snow on the ground anyway.

 

At the time of this writing

 

everything is dying.  The buds broke in

the premature sun no matter my warning.

No matter my warning everything is dying.

When they finally put the microphone in her

face it was too late and she left us.  I heard

she left us, in spite of my warning and I sat

down and wept.