Nachtmusik for Robert Lowell

Writing only in preacher-words,

we who are the opposite

of beauty level guns at the

fractured, scattered sky.

The hunt is desperation—

I feel the throaty bile

in my soul. All or nothing

now, broke-leg, broke-jawed,

soon to die for want of

whatever makes for the

champagne life, where whiskey

bright as wine turns

the eyes all liquor-lucent,

full of God. The poet

of my own country spoke of

casting worm and hook

for Christ; let that stand,

and yet I will go hunting heaven,
and the Word will strike me dead.