Forgetting Takes So Long

better days

FORGETTING TAKES SO LONG

for Henry

He lives out in Pomona, in the shadow of New York
The traffic drives him crazy on the long drive home from work
His habits hang their laundry on the long branch of his skill
Momentum is a foe the day you start to go downhill
A man should never trust a church that uses folding chairs
Your elbows take a beating when you’re falling down the stairs
The boats out on the Hudson, their lights grow awful dim
And the telephone’s not ringing, that’s how I know it’s him

It was only last December when the angels took his love
He hears her raindrop fingers tap the window up above
The coffee on the table and the pack of cigarettes
The spirit humming softly next the roar of his regrets
Come to me, sweet sorrow, keep my body in your clutch
My skin is almost shining and I’m lonely for your touch
He’s walking by the shore now where the bears of memory swim
The telephone’s not ringing, that’s how I know it’s him

The long night is an appetite, it waits for us with knives
The body falls, the spirit calls, the lonely heart survives
The winter light is sullen, those damn summers never last
The days are run by errands done, the sun goes down so fast
John Stewart on the stereo, the knives cut to the bone
July, you’re a woman more than any one I’ve known
The bottle from the pocket clinks against the goblet’s rim
The telephone’s not ringing, that’s how I know it’s him

He kept the nightly vigil, found the mercy after sin
A shaman came to share a drink, a poet named Ailinn
In an old saloon the silver moon still spills its healing light
The jar, the seal, the rock, the wheel, the feeling of the night
Then the awful silence and the banging of the door
Cinderella sweeps the bones from off the hardwood floor
He cannot find the music, but he still recalls the song
Love so briefly finds us, and forgetting takes so long

It was only last December when the angels took his love
He hears the raindrop fingers tap the window up above
The coffee on the table and the pack of cigarettes
The spirit humming softly next the roar of his regrets
Come to me, sweet sorrow, keep my body in your clutch
My skin is almost shining and I’m lonely for your touch
He’s walking by the shore now where the bears of memory swim
The telephone’s not ringing, that’s how I know it’s him

DL