Trust me I’m really trying to pay attention but it’s harder every day
& so I begin to trust only in appearances not “authenticity”—that half truth—
Growing so precisely redacted it’s even less now than what it once seemed
So I can’t help it & maybe I’m doing all right?—someone else has to tell me
I spend all my time in meetings & almost none with the few people I love
Still my house is beautiful it’s filled with books & filled with light & filled too
With eloquent recordings of music at the end of the world & also with the grace
Of the woman who’s made this house of paper songs & tied my hand-inked messages
With black ribbons to those thin branches above the brick walkway
Leading to our door as it’s now the single way I’ll actually write to people
& how do I look to you these days?—& really who remembers it all as you do?—
& when the night-blooming jasmine smells so delicious I love just sitting here
Shredding on Lance’s custom shop Les Paul—my vintage Vox amp cranked up
So high no microphone could salvage those lyrics of pure human spittle you know
That song I mean the one about all of us—fiercely irrelevant & yet so briefly alive