Leave summer there
To bleed into the sea
Autumn is coming down hard

The mountain retreats
The backstreet brothels
The street photographs
The excuse that I was drunk
The boxing titles
And all of the countless blood baths

All of them are gone
All of them are done now

Like that springtime record
And all of my government names
I have one stone cold alibi
That needs no rehearsing
And needs no fake feelings posed
When winter comes knocking
With its unasked for inquiries
About whether
This was indeed that
Or that was indeed this

September 26 1972

That is all I am saying
I have no further comment

Let them state for the record
Whatever they want

I have already said –
No further comment

The footage has long been deleted
And all the evidence burned

By the crematorium fire
By the valium blues
And by this disrupted sentence
That now breaks and then falls
Like the leaves and the ash
Around my blistered feet
Lapped by the last rays of
My own summer’s breath