FIT MUSIC

From Lorenzo Thomas' Fit Music published by Angel Hair Books in 1972 with cover by Cecilio Thomas. 

When poets beg acceptance for their lines

It’s when ephemera and wisdom intertwine

When dull biography engulfs a poem,

The poet shores his patron with a Proem

To raise his thought above the dross of life

Since life intrudes, the Proem is a gloss.

Deja vu more or less. Most likely, more

Should fit you now to hear this song of strife.

You spent childhood rehearsing the Korean War

You fucked up in college and picked the wrong major

And in 66 everyone faked concern with Asia

It was all more fitting than you thought;

That staging. When the orders come down

For the Nam fourth of July as is fitting

You implored the Muses to fly from their knotting

You totaled the Chevvy out of meanness

You whined and wondered how to escape this mess

And Lord who to write to. There should be a Lord

If there must be a Proem you thought.

But there was none. Only your drunkard

Friends your dope fiends and pimps

Demon lovers and lovers. And girls dumb

To the morse code from space still arriving

While Zia suns cracked over the desert,

You fled through archives in your brain

Remembering acidulous hash and devotions

Consecrated by the pain of navigating through wine

In peaceful East Coasts full of bare bodies

And icy streets under neon. Now tropical death

Leaped before you. You wept. Wastefulness when

The car ran them down. And the orders came down

As your prophets demanded. Strange FM stations

And astrological phonecalls hastened to soothe you,

Saying “don’t give a damn.” It was time

To be going. Vancouver or South Viet Nam.

KS

08.19.12