Mockingbird Wish Me Luck @page { margin-bottom: 5.000000pt; margin-top: 5.000000pt; } the big fire I’m on fire like the cactus in the desert I’m on fire like the palms of an acrobat I’m on fire like the fangs of the spider I’m on fire with you and me I’m on fire walking into a drugstore I’m on fire I’m on fire the girl hands me my change and laughs at me I’m on fire in my bed alone I’m on fire with you I’m on fire reading a book about Trotsky, Hitler, Alexander the Great, anybody at all, any walking living dead human once upon the earth I’m on fire looking at the grass I’m on fire looking at birds sitting on telephone wires I’m on fire answering the phone— I leap straight up when it rings I am burning I’m on fire looking at velvet I’m on fire looking at a sleeping cat I am a helpless burning thing among other helpless burning things I lay on my left side and look at the tombstones then I lay on my right side and look at the tombstones— they are all burning I’m on fire putting a stamp on an envelope I’m on fire wrapping garbage into a newspaper I’m on fire with heroes and dwarfs and poverty and hope I’m on fire with love and anger I’m on fire like a bat hanging upsidedown like a bellboy hating the rich and smiling at their tips I’m on fire in a supermarket watching a most womanly woman bend over to pick up some potato salad I’m on fire like a scissors cutting the eyes out of the sky I’m on fire like onehundredthousand monkeys boiled into one heart and sobbing through centuries of hopelessness I’m on fire like a clean sharp knife in a kitchen drawer I’m on fire like a beggar in India a beggar in New York a beggar in Los Angeles… the smoke and burning rises and the ash is crushed under… I’m on fire like the circus that went away the champion who quit on one knee all burning all alone all one ash I’m on fire like a dirty bathtub in a lonely roominghouse I’m on fire like the roach I kill with my shoe I’m on fire with men and woman and animals who are being tortured and mutilated in dark and isolated places I’m on fire with the armies and anti-armies I’m on fire with the man I hate most in the world I’m on fire without a chance the fat is in the fire, the lamb is over it the sacrifice seems forever the enduring seems forever the sun is on fire… and the glazed horizon is red and the weeping and the weeping and you and me the sun is burning everything: the dogs, the clouds, the icecream the end the end of the stairway the end of the ocean the last scream the bug in the jar spouts into flame and the inside of the skull gives up at last the smoke blows away.
