a symphony orchestra.
there is a thunderstorm,
they are playing a Wagner overture
and the people leave their seats u
and run inside to the pavilion

yes, they begin out in a willow, I
the starch mountains begin out in
and keep right on going without re
pumas and nectarines
somehow these mountains are like

you won’t see them often
for wherever the crowd is
they
are not.
those odd ones, not

I laugh sometimes when I think ab
say
Céline at a typewriter
or Dostoevsky...
or Hamsun...

this man used to be an
interesting writer,
he was able to say brisk and
refreshing things.
at the time

there’s a bluebird in my heart tha
wants to get out
but I’m too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I’m not goi
to let anybody see

this time has finished me.
I feel like the German troops
whipped by snow and the communists
walking bent
with newspapers stuffed into

I was a bum in San Francisco but
to go to a symphony concert along
and the music was good but somethi
audience was not
and something about the orchestra

either peace or happiness,
let it enfold you
when I was a young man
I felt these things were
dumb, unsophisticated.

first time my father overheard me
this bit of music he asked me,
“what is it?”
“it’s called Love For Three Oran
I informed him.