m-m-m-mahler

it’s too late to listen to Mahler
after a life time of movies
surprise is cliché
and thrills don’t

and too late to read
unlimited novels
with similar
excuses

even Elisabeth Schwarzkopf’s
honey
won’t
heal me

what’s left
is the aching
art of what’s left
of the 21st century

as we slide through
apocalypse
into
silence