Hello, Ugarte
I’m watching Casablanca again …
Don’t worry
I own it

It’s still early March yet
It doesn’t feel like winter at all
Los Angeles is on fire
Don’t pay no mind though
It happens all the time
Didn’t you read “Miss Lonelyhearts”?

No, they don’t sell it at Target.

In 1942 they filmed for three months
that now
seem to be lasting forever

“Is that your favorite movie?”
You know the answer.
Must you ask?


“The plane to Lisbon, you’d like to be on it.”
Yes, I know all the words, too.
I’ve seen it hundreds of times by now


Rick’s always drinking brandy
and smoking cigarettes
It’s quite a surprise
that I don’t have lung cancer
or cirrhosis of the liver

I’ve always been a sucker for a good role model

I won’t lie though,
Every time I watch this
An Absinthe bottle seems to surface
I know for a fact now
I’m very slowly being poisoned by the stuff

I don’t believe there’ll be any lessons tonight
Just a fantasy of
A white sport-coat
and maybe
A pink
Carnation

I repeat ‘fantasy’
As if I expect there to be others.

However –
I have only one
And it keeps repeating unfaded in dark hallways
Of the past
In the closed office buildings of my mind

Maybe it’s the Absinthe
Maybe it’s Miss Ilsa Lund
Maybe it’s you

The Absinthe is real
Ilsa’s long dead
And you’re long gone

There’s a note
That I left in my apartment
You’ll know where to find me







From: Observations of a Dead Man (2007)