After the Army I went and lived in the city. I enjoyed the machinations, the trains and brick buildings - it coulda been 1920 or science fiction. I’d sit in the diners and drink too much coffee, fiddle with some old Beckett book and maybe a drawing. I never read more than a sentence or two as it was more than enough. The endless murmur, a quiet hymn that rustled around in my head. Beckett courted death - not like some romantic hero, but like a man who stared at a wall for a number of years until he understood.
Understood very plainly
The basic functionality
of How It Is.
Beckett wasn’t afraid of death because
he had a secret.
I wasn’t afraid of death because I was
an old women slurping soup.
Chicago wasn’t afraid of death because it had already
burned down to the ground.
The three of us sat around chuckling about it
while the sparrows got drunk in the rain.
