Complete Works

A thousand Dreams within me softly burn: From time to time my heart is like some oak Whose blood runs golden where a branch is torn.

I have stretched ropes from steeple to steeple; Garlands from window to window; Golden chains from star to star ... And I dance.

Evening prayer I spend my life sitting, like an angel in a barber's chair, Holding a beer mug with deep-cut designs, My neck and gut both bent, while in the air A weightless veil of pipe smoke hangs. Like steaming dung within an old dovecote A thousand Dreams within me softly burn: From time to time my heart is like some oak Whose blood runs golden where a branch is torn. And then, when I have swallowed down my Dreams In thirty, forty mugs of beer, I turn To satisfy a need I can't ignore, And like the Lord of Hyssop and of Myrrh I piss into the skies, a soaring stream That consecrates a patch of flowering fern.

These verses believe; they love; they hope; that is all.