During My Life

During my life.
Communism died, but  it  keeps making gurgling noises slightly out of earshot.
My mom split.
My dad died of lymph node cancer and toxic shock.
I flew back to Chicago and taught Frosh Comp
and my students wrote papers about why they owned guns.
This was the alternative to going into exile and looking for God.
God who runs away when you look for him.

In my dreams. In my dream life.
Hitler gets to be a painter. A shitty painter, but a painter nonetheless.
My mom stays and smells of hollyhocks and mothballs.
My dad dies again,
but this time I’m  in Maui drowning my sorrows in  big-titted  Calpurnia.
God stays.
He looks a bit like Victor Buono. It’s unnerving.
He sits at the hotel bar telling war stories: Sarajevo, Stalingrad. Tet.

During my life
the best alternatives come from mulling on my thesaurus.
That’s about  as good as  it gets outside a good curry.
During my dreams. During my dream life.
I resurrect the dead and, when I get bored,   I bury them again.

                                Ivor Irwin