"gold horns"

"gold horns"
written after a weekend that was wreckage by jake kilroy.

the lulls of artie shaw and his orchestra filled my head with paint,
and i thought i was bleeding from the ear until i redid the past,
with every color i thought i only saw the first time i was in love,
but that was years ago, when the present could tickle my fantasies,
and i could carve names in a tree and believe i'd come back to visit.

in my backyard, the sun set, and it looked like autumn leaves
melted down and used as a camouflage for the great beasts
who crawled across the lawn, wailing the spells of the wind,
and i drank the slow warmth of an unclean whiskey glass.

and the piano sighed.
and the horns cried out.
and i was left to wonder.

every cigarette i lost to the golden swarm of big band music,
every woman i lost to the north or the east or the musicians,
every time i lost my heart in a quiet low-light slow dance,
it all came back, and i was the dark, handsome shadow
that blew through america as the patron saint of almost.

so i slung my legs over the edge of the porch and laid back,
my heart done for, my head demolished, my body unforgivable.
how tragic it is to be the one ruined hardest by your own art.