Please God let Lollapalooza be over. I've absorbed
so much residue from my past revisited. The seizing
in chorus that left nothing but more ulcers
and a worse smoking habit.
I was certain that these people could or had
been compatriot: people who'd taken the Pixies far
too seriously, people who'd pressed their girlfriends who
were too drunk to stand against train car walls.
People composed imperceptibly as the Tom
Sawyers of my childhood, and the full moon too
and all that iridescence and disapperation
that goes along with things like the full moon.
And then that night, during an especially loud set,
(and only the bass crosses Columbus from Grant Park)
a dark swirling came over the cross walk or up out
of a drain grate. And it was not liquor and sweat,
or any confluence of bootlegged substances
—or men! and I couldn't discern it. I spelt Lollapalooza
backward and found no alchemical meaning.
I considered a werewolf as dark swirling
but couldn't find a precedent for that anywhere
—and looked! And then at work the whole park
raised, spun it's darkened liquid face toward mine and
spoke.
And he spoke and I tried very hard and succeeded
at finding something with which to distract myself.
I failed to make my peace and fell under the censure.
Where the President had stood! had come to this;
my ignoring something as hard as I could, and that what
looked lovely from afar had looked lovelier.
