The Roar of the World

for Galway Kinnell

Point for point, I take your noisome
Hymn to silence, and I crush it,
Drag your dream all the way to hell.

You want to imagine. I want
To remember, wholly reverse
The amputations of your verse.

Bring back the loudspeakers' bad jokes,
The three human beings I knew
Who actually loved Billy Joel:

The frosh Ivy league teenager
From Queens, circa 1980,
The monolingual German saint

And hair stylist who confided
To me, sotto Deutsch, he would cut
My grizzly hair and beard for free

If only I'd explain to him
The meaning of his favorite song
Translated into German rhymes.

I couldn't help him. But I did
Console the Italian woman,
Decades later, for whom the roar

Of the world could only be drowned
In persistent tinnitus
Brought on by Billy Joel concerts.

I laughed at her and was ashamed
And bought her a concert album.
I laugh at you. I am ashamed.