Sun went down looking like the eye of God
   behind icy mist and stark bare trees
   inside the dim empty cinema 2 guys in leather
   jackets glance at each other and shiver
   "they never built these places with winter in mind"
   out the window down the gray road you can see
   old walled monastery
   now become a barracks for the paramilitary police
  
   i saw an old lady's face once on a Japanese train
   half lit, rich and soft luminosity
   she was dozing straight upright head bobbing almost imperceptibly
   wheels were playing fast in 9/8 time
   her husband's friendly face suddenly folded up in a sneeze
   across the straight a volcano flew a white smoke flag of surrender
  
   in a Roman street on a full moon night
   i was sick and there was a young cop in a circle
   of yellow light
   as we drew near he snapped the safety off his
   machine pistol and slid a trembling finger
   to the trigger
   i wanted to say something calming but couldn't
   catch his eye
   he didn't want contact -- he was trained to
   see movement
   "well don't shoot me man i'm a graceful slow dancer
   i'm just a dream to you not real at all"
  
   i wonder if i'll end up like Bernie in his dream
   a displaced person in some foreign border town
   waiting for a train part hope part myth while the
   station changes hands
   or just sitting at home growing tenser with the times
   or like that guy in "The Seventh Seal" watching the
   newly dead dance across the hills
   or wearing this leather jacket shivering with a
   friend while the eye of God blazes at us like
   the sun...