Morning Eulogy for Nina Simone

with every mistrusted minute
intolerable loves
break out into an insufferable song

the hapless gasp of what cannot be
runs through every conduit of light and dark

to place the impossible jewel of the impossible love
into an impossible crown

betrayal beckoned
blackened the blackness
liberated the hatred
sung the sweetness
for nothing
for hopelessness
for you who were you
lastly
alone

and the crowds came
to cluster around your piano
around the dulcet venom
around the unforgiving anger

applaud the queen
applaud the goddess
applaud the diva of soul
high priestess of intolerable beauty

lost child in life's mayhem
loved by her voice

which the populace could never hear
until they placed rhythms to it
which never should have been

plastic close ups beat the fragrances of spring kisses

who can still smell your lament

as the mass weep before heaps of hideous plastic flowers
for the dead they can't remember
for their dead friends who live in their salacious minds
programmed to erect eject salivate reject

yes my dear
so it is
they have no heed
your voice hopeless
from a land yonder
unwelcome here
where dreams of nonsense rise
in collective orgasm
exchanging artless loves

O the incompetent lovers

they were not worth it

whoever was you never met
or never trusted
or never sung
the echo of your mutual becomings
lost and misunderstood
forever
in this diminishing land of lost souls
where love cannot be
where the winds are the objective complement
of the highest angers caressed by God's finger
where History spoke hushed crushed
as your piano
as your black bird
as your Porgy

as you


(for Nina Simone)