Desolation Your Inheritance

Charlie Smith

Here you might come on yourself, a chef
in a minor institution, or a trumpet player gone
out of style, you might notice yourself at a seaside park,
punching the wind, you might think of yourself
as depleted, jostled by indifferent officials,
you might play at reminders, compare yourself to the
  frequently
blessed, yet there will come a time
when the development of emergency relations loses
  momentum,
when on a personal occasion you do not shine . . .
I wish you would step aside at this moment,
refuse to compare yourself to a prosecutor,
to one who is engaged in a struggle for his rights,
I wish you would sit a while in the grass, experimenting
with a piece of vegetation, I think
it will soon pass, whatever it is,
the day and its henchmen,
the night and its irrepressible spirit,
information about some engagement you didn't recall
will reach you, the absence will prove to be valuable,
there are certain variations,
conspicuous entertainments like brass articles
left on a bench, a summons
coated in pollen, that will sustain you,
bursts of feeling, grandiose rhetorical dawns
and the emptiness will become you, desolation
your inheritance, remarkable to the neighbors, ;
the ones who burned their houses
for insurance, to the converted and abused,
who gather around you, indicating with delicate gestures
the vacant lot where your estate used to be.