Too late

I suffered for my sanity
till I didn't know how to breathe
I struggled to gain sanctity
now I don't know how to speak.
Now I'm walking through the city
with a skeleton for my shadow
hara-kiri entrails in the gutter
and the cry of a bleeding heart
resounds in the back alleys
where the multitudes push and shove.
Empty faces from the fashion pages
lovers drunk in their embrace
flamenco players tuning up in the rain
and the moss is very green.
Go buy another bottle
try to make it through the night
a shadow hangs over the city
and the air is vile and stale
a man on crutches stumbles and falls
and I turn my head away, away.
Think of the sea and big black birds
ripping long blue strips out of the sky
go back into the concrete jungle
small talk with the vending machines
go past the ten thousand temples
with a faint remembrance
at the back of your mind
debris of a dream, once upon a vision
visitation revelation
that gave you wings and gave you words
but in the twilight of your memory
the daily drudgery of thought
left speechless in the end, embarassed
on the floor and on your knees
groping in the velvet emptiness
of eyes gone dead, unseeing
and you can't even cry now
or talk to old friends
they've gone and become carpenters
or they went mad or made a fortune
you have left them, you have lost them
somehow as you walked
in the silk corridors of vision
the gilded halls of dreams
where the airy stepping stones
of words of power on the wind
one day gave out onto the nothingness
all too familiar from before
leaving you alone to see
you'd gone nowhere once again
but it was too late, too late.



April 1975. Kyoto