I dream of a black-brew death
Drawing deeply of the draught
Listening to the lying voices that longer ago than is comfortable for me to think on
Spoke to me of study and success
And left me in a rush after a reckless day of writing
Returning on occasion when I, eager
To feel again a fortunate man and find
A piece of the power I had pursued
And held in my hands and heart at times in younger days
Drink too deeply of that darkened water
They sing to me, sirens, who cannot swim,
Stonelike in the saltiest streams and with a life-jacket on–
Perhaps the heart, too long hard, heaves me downward–
The lyrics lifting up light and life and laughter,
And I know there is truth in the tunes they turn out,
Know and have known the feeling named often
Euphoria, rapture, consummation, completion,
The power that pulses and pushes on thought and motion and life,
Can call it from the cup put to my lips again and again and again,
Drained dry and refilled and drained dry once more,
A singular sequence that sustains me each day and that
Promises puissance and perhaps the touch of some god upon me
Shunning the Stupid God that so often succeeds in the world
The day will dawn that I approach the domain of the singers,
Come before their choir and call them to take me up among them,
Bind my baritone into their bars and measure their meters in majors and minors,
Finally finding a finish to what I have done and am doing and want to do again.
I will pass through the portal that I pour for myself a cup at a time,
Twitch through the tunes I have heard in times past until I am no longer
Part of the audience but performer,
No bare bodkin to consummate me in my last bed,
But a more bountiful flood filling me than any fucking ever could,
However hard the hand upon the hilt,
And each day, each dram, each drop eagerly taken,
The thought that this will be the one that takes me there,
Finding each has failed and flailing for another
Until, at last, the carafe is empty, the cup is dry and cleared away
And nobody will be there to brew another batch.

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