Map When Pity Is Spent

"That's my story, the whole thing,"
he says, but I have many questions;
I began to ask him ceaselessly
as if I was a stranger and he was another man:

Cædmon, sing me something

and he would become fetal
there on the road and protest
that he did not know how
or that his throat was dry

Cædmon, sing me something

and why didn't I leave him alone
anyway and he already told me
his story and isn't that enough after all
it's what any man can do and no more

Cædmon, sing me something

and it was all there the comet
the red dust the predictive
formulæ all mere as nature
oh why will you not be satisfied

Cædmon

Cædmon, sing.