Remember St. Paul (for Cyril Collard)

I passed up another late night round around the circuit
to sit and watch you flicker in the dark.
Of course, its not such a great sacrifice:
passing up a strange set of bones
pressed up against some cold, dirty-white tile.

Even at so many frames per second
I can read your thoughts, I can read your eyes.
I can read that small, small smile.
It says “We’re wasting away.”  We’re
setting like the sun behind the Eiffel Tower
across the ocean.  Run to the bridges.

Along the Seine, under the ramparts,
we do what for others would be some kind of sinning,
but for us, it’s just another kind of loving
that’s OK for now.  ‘Til we think about what’s coming.
And what we’re missing.  Maybe.
Still it’s some kind of community,
some kind of tiny, wayward communion:
His sweat on your tongue.

There’s that spot on your arm, that not so-funny tattoo.
I woke up with my own.
I’m right there breaking bottles with you.
I’m right down there with you.  Way down there.
Under the bridges.

We can hide as long as we need to.
We can hide ‘til we no longer care.
But time as we know it is running away,
so we may as well lay it all bare.
It’s best if we lay it all bare.

What about your father and the dark-paneled silence?
Even at so few words in a lifetime
we smell each other’s fear.
we recognize each other’s hands.
You’re thinking “Who will be the first one to go?”
You crack up your car.  Maybe that will stop you
jump-cutting through tunnels,
rushing toward bridges
and tiny communions.

I can jerk off thinking of Sammy
and still tremble thinking of you.
It scares me and relieves me
and sort of releases me to find
that I can hold death in one hand
and a Prince Albert in the other.

You’d probably get off on that:
a hole in the flesh with a ring
named after the son of a king.
Well, this prince is ruling
in all the wrong kinds of kingdoms
under the bridges.

What about the girl?
Thrashing about, hoping
to become some kind of woman.
She turns eighteen and you’re playing ‘possum.
But the real thing is coming your way.
Remember St. Paul.

Hearing that ‘cello you cling to the trunk of the car.
You’re howling in your desert.  I’m keening in mine.
We’re terrified and awestruck by the sight of that unseen line.
That thin, thin line.

We can rage as much as we want to.
We can rage as much as we dare.
But no one is saying when I’m coming over.
I’m hoping you’ll still be there.
I’m praying you’ll still be there.

Somewhere in the air, someone is singing with you.
It’s me.  She’s right, you know:
this disease can teach us how to love.
Remember St. Paul: “To the Pure, all is Pure.”
Piss on me.  All is pure.
Come out, come out wherever we are.
We are all pure.
Piss on me.
All is pure.
All is pure.

Copyright 1999 by Sam Piperato.  Recorded on his musical CD “Snow: The Songs of Sam Piperato”, 1999, Mixed and Recorded at TGS Studios in Chapel Hill, NC, USA.