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It Wasn't a Starry Night,





although the moon was full.

Three days before, I went

out to the fallow field,

put the revolver to my chest

and shot it once into my breast.



I missed my heart (how apt!);

I was never good with fine strokes.

Yes, a bullet sent right into my heart

would have worked, but I missed.

I sent you my self, so you would listen;

the part of me which heard your voice.



That didn't work as I had hoped it would.

I should have sent poetry, I knew I should.

And now I've failed as my own executioner

just as I failed as artist, and as lover.

I even failed with YOU, Mlle. Putain,

you who love for lucre, not Mon sucre.



Oh, yes, your rejection of me, Mon Putain:

that rejection was like bullets, over and over,

of me as your friend, as an artist, as your lover,

just as I felt impaled on the critics' barbs.

And so, now, I lie here, again impaled.

But now on this short, cold, leaden bullet.



It has drilled deep into my breast,

like just one more hateful comment.

But I MISSED my heart! My OWN heart!

Just as I missed YOUR heart, sweet-heart.

My chosen-to-be-beloved, Mon Coeur Doux!

( My "Flowers", how do they seem to you now?



My "Clouds", do you see them? And my "Dream"?

"Les etoilles", "les reves", "les nuages",

do you share them now? Oh!, I longed to know!!)

This hole near my heart is unrepairable,

and this final depression is unbearable,

but Oh!, this final mania is SO high!!



It is not a starry night, and it is not cold.

Few of our nights were warm or starry, I recall.

I am warm, and I have taken three days to die,

yet you have not come by, which makes me feel old.

I will go, and my heart will stay here, lay here.

I wish this were a starry night: I love those.

Bonsoir     (2007)