and kept himself busy

listening to songs

that lived like bats

in the chambers of his ears

mating and dying in degrees of sound

more difficult to tabulate than darkness is

but nevertheless he monitored

the tweaking of their silk

and reaching up would grasp

their heads as though to hapless

handles of open and shut umbrellas

extinguishing their notes one by one

unaware their population strictly adhered

to the rules of reincarnation

designed to endlessly repeat

a fluency of satanic or clairvoyant sounds

to twirl incessantly in his windblown skirts

after the manner

of precessional dancing

and it never occurred

to the worlds he was passing

worlds where he could be welcomed

examined and destroyed

to send him invitations

or declare themselves willing

to surrender their consciousness

to the apertures of his gaze

kept so tightly shut by forgotten loves

that kept reappearing beneath the soles

of his feet like stones for stepping;

he stepped forward and backward

like the progress of a concerto

his sheets billowing sadly

in time to the pathos

of seeming to be both a god and a man