4 Counterfeit Dream Songs

1

Henry’s hairs are not, as far as he fathom, contrary to his suspicions,
falling out.
He has tallied them, jewlike—Who like? Good golly, Bones. You transgress.
—before the glass, pores poured through (pawed too) and
there may have been some slight recession in the time between recessions,
but … No! None gone!

Even as less tangible things (love, friendship, purpose, solvency)
fall away. —Enuff me. Let’s square, one Hopeless Hank to another,
and in neither case our real names even, my parents calling me that
cause Bill was my father’s name, and you taking the name because your father
(whose name you also shared once, junior)
couldn’t handle the bills, the exiting wife and exited, life, thus:

Henry, being the ugliest name that your female friend’s female friend could fathom
(and that ugliness being right in my middle).
So we’re sympatico, see? —No, Bones, I don’t, can’t. Who you?
—Apologies, I nobody. A black boy, unblackt, unboy, un—
derstand now, why I’m mirrorbound, spiteful,
daring every one of those thin bastards to jump.

2

What did Dostoevsky see, when seized,
his body, with -ures divine, not
understood then, as now,
to be: brain damage, drink
and little else, except maybé
God, but wait—

Heretic Henry bears the cross that bore—
now boring, like your poem,
anthologized always, on that subject
with the dog gone, poof, away, so,
that’s your legacy—Christ,
and forgiveness, absolution. Nah.

But at night, not quite dreaming, I don’t quite see
a landscape unseen (even with eyes sóón shut) where
there’s a sword in that rock, upon the Rock: Pull. (Dull.)
My tower of silence, the vultures shunned. This meat unclean.
—A bap’tism? —Not in that water, Mr Bones, no.
You missed the boat.

3

Cold, yes, and colder still: Alone.
—Zero? —No, below, here below.
And you, Henry, being up, or down, or not,
so I do thinks, sometimes, bout going out
sans hat, mittens, o’rrcoat, uncovr’d
(and all this a fantasy, under covers)

into dat world:
cold, cold, as they sing,
as I have already, ad nauseum, said,
and, you know the chorus: Freeze.
—To death? —Lawd willing, Bones,
Lord willing. How’s the weather up there?

And she … —He, you do fór-get yourself, your manners (mannered, man ‘er’d)
—Orright, hé; he gone, Bones, he gone; for-ever
this time, though not last or the one before,
(and the pussycat, Bones, too) and I could jus’ cry, cry, cry
’til dem tearz freeze out dere in dat world (which, as I said: cold)
and then I, too: cold, colder, warm, coldest.

4

In the winter, after the fall, after The Fall,
after his fall (gunshot, dead) below your childhood window,
exiled from your world of fall, a line which, may I say,
and why not, what harm can come from flattering the dead,
in terms of your embarrassment or mine, só moved me,
you fell

(jumpt) off dat bridge in de cold water dere,
vicious icy, I ‘magin, unfit to drown cat or coon (or crow, jim).
—I weren’t no coon on dat day, nor damp Pussycat. I was a man den, only. Was.
—And why do yourself undone like dat (buried, man) a day after the Epiphany?
—No, not a day. I first had de thought many years before.
(And the audience, pale faced, so silent now.) —Safe, Bones? —No, dry.

Let me, finally, H. H. Bones, quote you, once (again), from #25,
and just say, before the curtain—I said the word before—
and you, beyond the curtain, or …
and knowing you saved me from what
you, having not you (and only you), did:
“Thank you for everything.”