Columbo Dominico

Columbo Dominico

dead on Minetta Street

is no finality;

even with a regiment of bullets in his back,

is no end of things.

Maybe the cops got him (he was out of work,

vagrant, selling bad booze);

maybe his brother, maybe his girl,

shouting: You go to hell, get out of here-

goodbye, Dominico.

And Dominico, surprised, unsteady,

leaping into eternal ether,

crying, Viva, viva anarchy!

Here is no end of things.

Even a frozen outpost of the Salvation Army

walking down the winter street,

seeing Dominico,

quickens his feet,

lifts up his watery eyes and sings:

Fesus saves, and his sweet breath

wakens all the sinners in the halls of death,

and his eyes shine bright and his heart beats warm

as he gathers all the sinners in the crook of his arm.

Fesus saves, Fesus saves.

Here is no finality.

Dominico dead

mingles with all the dead.

His gigantic shade

(an elbow leaning on the Woolworth Tower)

pierces love-struck Dante with a shoulder-blade,

and spits upon the trembling purpled face

that once was Nero's and the elder Morgan's;

vaulted into space,

it strides with Robespierre,

kisses Marat,

and sleeps, relaxed, with Lesbia for an hour.

There is no end of things. . ..

Angelo Gorini and Tony Bruno (out of work,

vagrant, selling bad booze)

the cops got them for killing

Columbo Dominico.

Angelo Gorini and Tony Bruno, falling,

slipping into death, calling

out! By Jesus Christ, we didn't do it-

viva, viva anarchy,

we love the red flag!