The Possum

Yesterday, I was working in my yard when I saw a possum

Swinging in the foothills and he was all beat up and hobbling

I got a closer look and his foot was mangled

I was woken up earlier by what I thought was the cat tangled

But it was him who got it bad from the cat that night

Slowly down the hill when he slipped under the fence

I brought myself up to check him out; he found the milk under the air conditioner

I pointed him out to Caroline, she crouched down and he was shaking and full of fear

And when she stood up, I asked, "Baby, why you crying?"

She said, "Because he′s cute and he's down there and he′s dying"

I went up to my room and I got a call from Justin

He was in San Francisco and Godflesh was playing

Caroline drove me halfway there where I met Tony

And we drove to the city and we parked out in front of the DNA

Justin and us, we had some laughs and we took photographs backstage

And our guts were protruding and all of them and we just kept laughing and laughing and laughing and laughing and laughing and laughing and laughing

Laughing and laughing and laughing and laughing and laughing and laughing and laughing

Laughing and laughing and laughing and laughing and laughing and laughing and laughing

Laughing and laughing and laughing and laughing and laughing and laughing and laughing

And when Godflesh took the stage, Tony and I, we stood there floored

Drum machines hammered and feedback blazed

For a moment, everybody grew silent

While Justin tuned his guitar; like a church, it got so quiet

Just for a minute, and then they all soared together

Like a car off a cliff, we crashed and burned over and over and again and again

They threw hard vicious guttural B-flats

Justin runs to the mic like a hungry grey white

He was on fire, giving it everything he had and killing it that night!

Tearing out his prey and it came to a screeching halt

A relentless and beautiful voice, a 70 minute assault

And then he bowed down and he set his seven string electric guitar down

And screeched to holy hell and they disappeared and off went the crowd

Then we had pizza and I came back to my apartment in the city

Until 4AM, I watched movies and my ears were ringing

And I called Caroline out at the house

We talked about the concert, about the possum down in the nook

And the ocean air came through my window

And the sound of foghorns, and then when I woke

Godflesh was down in LA

Tony had an open house that day

And I looked out at Sausalito

And Caroline was on her way back from Lake Town

I got a call from Paolo Sorrentino

I'd be off to Switzerland in a week or so

Caroline came home that night and we had dinner and watched HBO

And I'm grateful for her love and for my friends

And to have seen the possum walk its last walk along the island

I want to grow old and to walk my last walk

Knowing that I, too, gave it everything I got

But again it′s all roadblocks and all obstacles I fought

For to live another day is much better than to not

And I′d like to die with music in my ears

The piano of Maurice Ravel or Godflesh's guttural growls from hell

The sound that evokes good memories of being young and able to get around

And I′d like Caroline beside me

That old possum lost the fight

His sad, black eyes; what a thing to see on a glowing Easter Sunday

But that rodent was loved and he's still thought of

Church bells rang that day

I remember hearing them in the afternoon just as we left

He had to have heard them too