THIS IS WHY I OWE YOU SO MUCH

SONG FOR WINTER, or, THIS IS WHY I OWE YOU SO MUCH

Moonlight tended farmland tracts
on snowfall flat
-jesus would you look at-
tears running down
for sake of you.

Enzo, what are we having?
            Limoncello!
Oh, Enzo, what are we having?
            Limoncello!

So good by side diavola.

Train hooting down tracks
buying tickets during brake pumps
like in Rome when you asked me to read parts of  Tropic of Cancer
            as we drifted off for an afternoon nap
            and I’ve never felt more important.
Kneipen in Bad Win
halloweeen every third more or less
taking hostel beds to pass on post entry
and listening to my favorite music while chugging wine out the bottle
was pulling slivovitz out of the powder
when told me Parlier got punched out
well, that’s going to be some paperwork for somebody and
all this in the dark.

Schloßstübchen translates to Best Pizza
and not a word lost in
ordering beers just to have the girl bring it out
“it is okay,” he says, “she’s in college,” outside drinking with us.

Enzo, what are we having!
            Limoncello!

But you don’t know what it’s like
I kept Emerson’s “American Scholar” printed in my assault pack
for when I just couldn’t take it:

“Inaction is cowardice, but there can be no scholar without the heroic mind. The preamble of thought, the transition through which it passes from the unconscious to the conscious, is action. Only so much do I know, as I have lived.”

Archway under the clock tower
Jimmerson only nineteen howling at full speed
that was what, our third Saturday?
How we find Aldi and his Brasserie?
            Absinte!
Can hear that old hoot now calling my name,
oh, Aldi, don’t be so predictable!
            Absinte!

You just don’t know what it’s like.
To stare down Aldi’s spinning wheel
all stops but one and your fate
            Ab – Sin – Te!
even if you hit that one probably still shouting
            Ab – Sin – Te!

Yanked you out on ambulance stretchers
I waking to alley sirens
back against the wall
somehow no polizei
and stagger to train four hours late
54 more later it’s America for me
and you just don’t know what it’s like.
So tell me, one last time.

Enzo, what’ll it be?
            Limoncello!

High top seats around fire pit
“Take me home country roads”
can you believe it
as everywhere all the time
everything was dark
but it only made your faces brighter
and you just don’t know what it’s like.

Leaving jackets in entry hallways
waking up full drunken stride
window in the kitchen looking to the shower
smoking in the rain
all day in new place
naps on the ground
an euro more for schnapps also
but Fasching!
and the end of you
you just don’t know what it’s like

All that
still so bright in the dark.

January 25, 2021