To Boddah-

When all the words are worn out and turn gray

We will speak in infinite tongues of an infernal poet

Remnants written in graffiti underneath the rusted bridge,

Watching you wither in demolitions so well televised

Your magnifigant notes swelling, your grungy voice plunging

Into the canyon echoes of distortion, into feedback so

Piercing and delicate as the dried up leaves of December

Which at the best times growled analogous to those angst pawn shop guitars

Your performance amplified, until the impending end of set

The spectacular recherché of perilous extravaganza every night

By a wall of noise, by the boredom of each power chord from your hand

And from the stirring excitement of music once immersed by a sound of optimism

Hemorrhaged into the false dismal of celebrity the curtain call of betrayal

By the powder and liquid illusions, the gallons flowing across the strip

Wishing at the end that your hoarse burned out voice

would have merely whispered and disobeyed your own genius

Coming back into our world of anonymity,

we would have made an exception

patted you on the back and let you through to us again

aware that you’d become a bitter shrapnel spewing curmudgeon in old age

Instead those ovations were curtain calls to the serene Divine, the heroine

as you dived, those fingers which passed you through the crowd were needles

as abruptly as those notes ended without notice

we gained access to half a song rummaged by instruments smashed, left in a coma

each critic, every thief took a turn firing from a distance

and all you could do is line up the bullet fragments into a concept album

one lead piece for each letter of lyric - wrote out the last note

the canyons sealed up their boarders to the size of a glass crack

you were in a fish bowl, a transparent placenta trapped in a solemn vitality

shooting your way out of a misunderstanding what they call suicidal ideation

as Roma fell all we could do is watch it all burn away from the hillsides

watching others run for your wildfire shooting their way out of this world too

— Chris Grasso