A few days ago, he watched
a movie about the late
Sixties and early Seventies
and it won’t leave him alone;
it haunts him along with this
from the score: “Symphony
No. 6 in B Minor, Op. 74,
Pathetique: Allegro con grazia”
composed by Tchaikovsky;
he has dreamed a dream of
sickness in his stomach over
the very same horrible things
happening in his life because
to one degree or another horrible
things happen to everyone. In
this case, an almost perfect family
is blown apart like bombs burst-
ing in Vietnam and burning up
like napalm sprayed over villages,
in part, because of horrendous
political decisions revealing that
the consequences weren’t just
“over there,” because “over there”
is here and everywhere blowing
us away like bombs bursting,
burning us up like napalm and
eating away our soul.