The sinews of brain in the visible leaf

agitate for life and decay

in the unsculpted music of the breeze

birds send their variable messages

I am lonely under the bridge

with my finger-worn instruments,

and the water of life,

though diseased, still flows.

Cries of revolt and conformity fly

overhead, splitting existence

into warring branches, all destined

for error and certain death, but

there is some quiet here,

in the low hum beneath the grind.

What I looked for in love

and religion and politics and wild parties

I found only in solitude:

only in art, in the inexplicable, only in

the inner hope that denies the outer shame.