How I Write My Songs

Or you travel, alone, to Munich. (And when I say you I mean me.) You walk and walk and walk. You stop in every chilly deserted baroque church you come across. You attend the surprisingly inexpensive opera, learn that stehplatz doesn't mean seat, it means standing place. You wander through the bombed out and recreated residences of princes, dukes, electors, kings; you wonder how those who were not obscenely wealthy lived. You inbibe a certain quantity of locally brewed beer. You decide, all in all, you'd rather be in Belgium.

You don't even take a guitar.

You write some early drafts of poems and, finally home, type one out on your computer.

AT THE ALTE PIN0THEK, MUNICH, 8 APRIL 2005

They are only representations--
slicks of oil on canvas or wood.
And we only look at them--skaters,
say, on a frozen town moat in 1618.
Several people glide on one foot;
others swat at something with sticks;
one slides a carriage.
The sky's cerulean,
layer of high clouds,
punctuation of tiny birds.
Over the wall--buildings, a town.
The world bustles, nearly teems.
But I am not entranced,
not exhilarated, not even
particularly interested.
I've never skated, not once.
I wander into the next room,
where I spotted two drunken men--
soldiers, maybe--cavorting with
two young women--prostitutes,
probably--in remarkable representations
of light and shade.