Then would I sing the stars

My every thought formed golden

My farts canned dear in jars

I’d be pompous I’d be stuffy

I’d bask aglow in my littered lane

I’d be wicked on how I’d suffer

I’d sigh whisper curse and blame

Locked doors my way would open

Charms my way befall

My heart would lie still frozen

My soul a cold and vacant hall

Young bodies next to mine would lie

Old fingers dry and bare

Men half my age but old enough

For whom I would not care

And near enough and dear enough

Remembrance would strongly stare

Sadly at this life of page

Real life neither dreamed nor dared

And so I wish such glories mine

My name caressed dumb in stone

Glories heaped and weaped upon

While I lie dust and bone

Silver-vizored, gauntleted

Roaring down the freeway

The wind in his nose and his throat

High-buckled to his neck and ox-leather overcoat

Stars at his elbows

Black lighting his hair

Willi at the truckstop

Drinking beer with Pachelbel

Back losers eacy way

Has taken no lessons from life

Sharp-bladed in his pocket a pearlhandled flick-knife

Knows where it’s leading

Old Pachelbel’s stare

Pach’s got a rooming-house

Winters in Alassio

Willi offers to stay

They’ll work something out overnight

Willi eyes the antiques, the silver in the lamplight

Pillow in his face

He’s strong as a bear

Wily old Pachelbel

Likes them naked, young and dead

Hauls him down the stairway

Throws him in the pit with the rest

There are sperm in his mouth and cigar-burns on his chest

The pearhandled knife

Lies under a chair

Six or eight weeks later

Pack’s a new young visitor

Thinks that it’s his birthday

Tries the ox-leather coat for size

Willi moves in the cement, opens lime-blinded eyes

Sighs from the cellar

Beware, or beware!

[Ivor C Treby]