Vito Corleone was in the hospital
on the first night of 2015.
With my phone buzzing in the other room
we focused our attention on the screen.
We watched until they blew up Apollonia
then we took a break and I saw the missed call.
My hands were shaking as I punched the number out
— the world cracked open bitter and banal.
There are times you want to burn down hospitals
and there are times you want to spit at nuns.
These days these times arrive at briefer intervals:
I hate the gods of cancer, rape and guns.
Michael Corleone was exiled to Sicily,
when the news came down from Fayetteville.
I sat down at the table and I tried to write,
but I ended up taking a sleeping pill.
There are times you want to wreck the universe,
rip out the cosmic ganglia and dreck.
Rage, rage against the dying and the pain that’s worse
and wear the viscera around your neck
Godfather, you were such a gentle soul.
calm and temperate, courtly as a squire.
I know there’ll come a time when I regain control
I know they’ll come a time when I expire.
But I’ve got no pretty words to make it seem all right
I’ve no breath to waste on sweet cliches.
I know they’ll never come another New Year’s night
when I don’t fondly think upon your ways.