I can't write a song

With Vic Chestnutt gone, no

The sun won't stay down

Albert Ayler's drowned

Go screw God again

Richard Brautigan's gone

Let it trouble you

D.F.W.'s done gad gone

Donny Hathaway

Margaux Hemingway

Stole themselves away

Walter Benjamin

Sucking down morphine

Nikki Bacharach

In a plastic bag

Phil Loeb never rose

From his overdose

One shot to the head

Killed George Eastman dead

Picture it

Mary Margaret Ray

And then Spalding Gray

Stole themselves away

Breece D'J Pancake

Never will awake

Darkness before noon

Filled Arthur Koestler's room

Are these choruses

Diane Arbus's?

I can't write a song

With Vic Chestnutt gone

Way long gone

With no note of disgrace

The late great Johnny Ace

Stole himself away