On my Birthday (1994)

To take from nothing and create
Sweet, finely orchestrated music
Is a blessed skill akin
To the Grand Watchmaker's art.
Mozart had it and he knew
It would kill him in the end.
How could it not? We can die
From too much splendor as well as bile
And to have revealed at each waking moment
The full-formed translation of a subconscious vision
Would shock us now, let 'lone then
When sophistication was measured by
Not pissing in the street. O my Mozart,
The throbbing strain of the seizing engine
Lies behind each elfin score,
And as I grow older, toward your death age,
So I marvel, more and more.