Sun went down looking like the eye of God Behind icy mist and stark bare trees Inside the dim empty cinema two guys in leather jackets Glance at each other and shiver "They never built these places with winter in mind" Out the window down the gray road You can see old walled monastery Now become a barracks for the paramilitary police I saw an old lady's face once on a Japanese train Half lit, rich with soft luminosity She was dozing straight upright head bobbing almost imperceptibly Wheels were playing fast in 9/8 time Her husband's friendly face suddenly folded up in a sneeze Across the straight a volcano flew a white smoke flag of surrender In a Roman street on a full moon night I was sick and there was a young cop in a circle of yellow light As we drew near he snapped the safety off his machine pistol And slid a trembling finger to the trigger I wanted to say something calming but couldn't catch his eye He didn't want contact -- he was trained to see movement "Well don't shoot me, man, I'm a graceful slow dancer I'm just a dream to you not real at all" I wonder if I'll end up like Bernie in his dream A displaced person in some foreign border town Waiting for a train part hope part myth While the station changes hands Or just sitting at home growing tenser with the times Or like that guy in "The Seventh Seal" Watching the newly dead dance across the hills Or wearing this leather jacket shivering with a friend While the eye of God blazes at us like the sun...