1206. ANGLED LIKE BENT STEEL

ANGLED LIKE BENT STEEL

And stronger I rage. Inveterate,

as a sea-monster of old lurking

beneath the roiling waters : wine-

dark sea, and all the rest. I pulse a

fist in the heart of mind and swing

wildly with every new urge. Circumstance

and matter and want mean little to me.

(I watch her, standing in black, along the

old, brick building. She's looking back at me).

I raise a mid-century hand to wave, and

she breaks out in laughter. God-damn, it

all worked! We spend the night together,

listening to the Velvet Underground beneath

covers on an old wooden floor. It's simply seen,

all this, in retrospect : the inner vanity of an

aging mind. (I am an old man now, one with old

metal fillings in old ground-down teeth. I've grown

nothing but wiser with age?). Or so it's said.

-

Replete with all the pinions of grace, my steering

has lost its control. I am wilder now than ever

before - a crusty anarchist standing 'midst ruins.

And what do I care? And what do I care at all?