April 23rd poem

On Angels and Other Things

Didn't I once write a poem about Wim Wenders, Wings of Desire? 

And didn't I once watch Herzog's movie about the eighteenth-
century villagers, all the parts played by hypnotized actors,

when R. was taking that seminar on the sublime?  Wasn't it
then that I walked out of his apartment on my own, around

the corner to get ice cream?  Maple walnut?  Didn't it

please me, the city, the people and their books and dogs

and basketballs, though I held myself apart, my habit?
Haven't I been all over?  I've been everywhere, man.

But what I started to tell you about was the angels, how
for a couple of years I dreaded going home for holidays, 

how I once sat alone in a wood-frame house in Lawrence,

Kansas, watching Wim Wenders' angels over Christmas. 

Maybe I made myself a meal.  Maybe I ate leftover cheese
and crackers.  Alone and inviolate is how I like to think

of myself, despite my myriad human connections, despite
all the minor molestations of this world, despite all the 

attendant angels, the one at my shoulder taking notes.