I am ill with the music of my self and rum and beer and the stain of failure while outside the river softly roars the wind sighs in the pines and the coyotes in the foothills call down the moon inside an old refrigerator moans a mousetrap snaps and the radio whispers Spanish guitars and I perk up my ears thinking that I hear again beneath the static the terrible laughter of the gods yes, I am ill with the music of my self with the absence of love and the impossible justice of the cosmos as I sit in this dirty kitchen and scratch these nonsense lines trying my best to ignore the breaking of my starving gentle heart