Whenever I talk to them, they don’t answer: maybe
their silence is meant to imply something – that I
should know the answers already – maybe it’s just
silence, maybe they can’t speak, they don’t exist,
and for this job I’m going to need the god Hermes
to walk for me among the undisciplined armies
of the dead, to search out this one and that one
as they wander round without any hurry or reason
and then deliver himself of what I have to say.
He has a sad look, for all his silver skin and his finery,
having been there too often before, a survivor
of glam rock, all metallic spray-painted feathers
and glittery boots, with his make-up peeling
from an age-stricken face; now there’s no telling
what music he hears while he looks at the distance
where there’s no music at all, and where mischance
is the way of things. If a song can be a present,
I’ll give him Flyin’ Shoes by Townes Van Zandt
(whose ghost, when he’s down there, he might well meet,
hungover and good as its word, I don’t think that
I’m going to benefit from anything on this earth).
I’ll offer him whatever all his trouble is worth,
but he’s too far gone now even for country music
and mottoes like Love is just basically heartbreak.
He clatters away, and I know that he’s not coming back.