I was out tonight, pissing on the moon
The yellow full moon. The man across the way
Was picking up dogshit with a shovel
Stuffing it into a Safeway bag.

Venus is in bloom tonight.
There are a thousand or so comets
Leaching across the southern sky.
I pretend that they are friends visiting
From Antares coming to visit me
Coming to visit me
To visit me with love
From the cold and wandering star
They call Antares.

Childhood is such a nightmare.
We free ourselves from such nightmares
That come up in darkness; I lay me down
Among silver chords, a dream of spiders
Bagged together clawing their way across
Dark and crowded stairs crawling up...

I have nothing against the man across the way,
With his cleanliness, and his dogs,
And his collection of dogshit.
I have nothing against him
And he, I trust, has nothing against me
And my frozen moment of darkness
Coming up the stairs.
I do not blame him.

Once, when we were too young by far,
You and I stayed up all night,
Beastly drunk on a train to Madrid,
Our lips blood red from blood wine
The night hills like spooks wheeling away.
Drunk blind stupid on tinto you my god
Smelling like the lilies-of-the-valley
Wound into me as we beat down
The dark tracks to Madrid;
You over me I said no no no
Not that way you said they don't mind
Malrincones like us making love
In a very public private way
I said no no I said no please
No not not that way no
                   Not please without you again.

I was out tonight, pissing on the moon.
It's no different now, now that the beast
That worried you and me died on the tracks
Outside Madrid, run over an eon or so ago.
It's now no different: you saying nothing
         you smelling the dead lilies,
             looking at the dead light,
                 and all over me the child webs
                     coming at me again.

© 1977 Ángel Pérez