For Dennis Hopper

The goon at the rumble
with a switchblade knife,
or laid out under fireworks
with starspangled crazy eyes
leering into a microphone
on the highway at night
in a steel black Cadillac,
or bursting through the mirror,
in dreams he walks with you.
He will haunt American cinemas,
bug eyed, gritting his teeth
as the house lights go down.

Where is he now? In some
candyland, huffing cocaine
from a sherbert straw,
or stumbling into an audience —
lights, camera, Dennis Hopper
this is not your life.
And he looks confused, as if
the trappings of the old world
ought to live on in the new.
He sips tonic water, growing strange
as he answers all the questions,
the audience become uneasy,
he now sees the Totenkopf
coming down out of the lights.
As in a dream the scene shifts —

the show continues, but he is old
and doesn't recognise his body.
He is drunk, lying in the street,
realises he can reach and touch
every one of the stars.
He is still being interviewed,
and to every question he replies
"Hollywood's mad dogs are dying"
and laughs a barking laugh.
The applause is overwhelming
as he lurches from the floor
into the air, clutching a bottle of spirit.
Curtain.