then the leaving

on the eve

of the morrow

of fifty-one

and fifteen years since

we last spoke in tongues

your eyes wide then the leaving

Happy Birthday, Brother

poem for artist & poet John Sokol

I see you

little bits of

your heart

your mind

your soul in the scratch-scratch

sent through the post after

I had the audacity to pay extra for shipping of

your ink and ganache flora

I see what you did there

I see you

in Comfort

in The Shadow of One

your words reach me, yet;

I don’t know you at all

deep blue yonder

that girl, who was not green
perhaps you were the first to go

47

be still
look about
turtle-up
she's an all or nothing girl

waking

sleeping dirty
deep in the chill
of a half lit room
waking
to a cold sweat
clammy
legs akimbo
reaching across cool sheets
to a vacant bed
humming...
reaching...
into the universe
aching....
ready....


"In the world you're so far away
I would reach out
and touch your heart..."
Room at the Top ~Tom Petty

the other

living at the speed of light
the slowing
the norming
dissonance and discordance
the other, the lighten-ing
became the norm
and in the re-norming
she's unmoored,
she's come undone