I Wish It Weren't So

True Story:

I moved from Venice to Nowhere in my eighteenth year,

spent twenty years dusting off my soul in Tallahassee,

ate a grotty bit of slime in London, the month I lost my age,

found a legless priest in Reno when I thought God was my brother’s mother,

killed a sneakless hotel-bug on a motel-rug in an East-End Middle Eastern hostel,

I thought I’d get away conscience hungry monster-free, (but I didn’t and wept),

I prayed to the God of Ichthys when Greece was still cool, I think.

I never never sold my soul to nobody but the Devil’s Uncle’s Son,

I never never told my secrets to nobody but burning Phlegethon’s lonely guardian,

swallowed my bitter hate and washed it down with bitter beer,

and stomach-launched bits of Chicken Liver Tuesday in a Silver City alleyway,

when I died I thought I’d be forgotten, forgiven, forewarned of the faceless.

…

But I weren’t and I’m not

and what’s been is will be.

Now take a seat young ones

This is where things

Get a little fuzzy.