Awake in the deep bowl of the night
I flicked listless channels
hoping for something about old Russia
or nebulae and black holes
I found a news item
dead at thirty-four
they kept saying ‘suicide’
while a black ribbon running
across the screen repeated
‘Elliott Smith is Dead’
as though he were the Queen
there were grainy clips
of his punk rock days
then solo, in a white suit
losing the Oscar to Celine Dion
and the most lovely:
a dark, quiet interview
in a late night laundromat
rings of light reflecting in his eyes
and the black wood of his guitar
it was a warm night
I walked in the garden
inside the television sputtered
like a roman candle and outside
the bald blue moon lit up the lawn
a dark ice field
the white suit, the black guitar
I thought of the suicide scene
in The Royal Tenenbaums
hair on the floor mixing with blood
and wondered if we really walk
on a carpet of flowers with Krishna
on that far off day
like in the Hindu pamphlet
in the dentist’s waiting room
before I woke up I dreamed
I sat with him at the glass bar of Nighthawks
I kept waiting for him to speak to me
and I kept waiting for morning
to come to the painting
but the long seedy night did not end