I could a done a lot worse than sit
In Skid Row drinkin wine
To know that nothing matters after all
To know there's no real difference
Between the rich and the poor
To know that eternity is neither drunk
Nor sober, to know it young
And be a poet
Coulda gone into business and ranted
And believed that God was concerned
Instead I squatted in lonesome alleys
And nobody saw me, just my bottle
And what they saw of it was empty
And I did it in cornfields & graveyards
To know that the dead don't make noise
To know that the cornstalks talk (among
One another with raspy old arms)
Sittin in alleys diggin the neons
And watching cathedral custodians
Wring out their rags neath the church steps
Sittin and drinkin wine
And in railyards being divine
To be a millionaire & yet to prefer
Curlin up with a poorboy of tokay
In a warehouse door, facing long sunsets
On railroad fields of gra**
To know that the sleepers in the river
Are dreaming vain dreams, to squat
In the night and know it well
To be dark solitary eye-nerve watcher
Of the world's whirling diamond