A Song to Slit Your Throat To

That is your legacy, to some:
a strange and saddened thing, an alien absorbing
all the pain, the misery, the introspection
of a race denoted by religion, sex, and art.

But as you said, in one of your own sermons,
on top of your own beleaguered mount,
"there is a crack in everything.
That's how the light gets in."

And that's how those who listened should remember you:
as cracks, as light, as a voice, guiding evolution
to intelligent design...

A child's ego-centrism evolved
into something like a human personality,
when your voice, your songs, your growling, scorching id,
overtook the idol that was his, and grinding it down
to a fine, healthy pulp, the battle cry of all that hates
became a verse of hope.

Section in speech marks a quote by Leonard Cohen