Dedicated to my Uncle David, who passed away 18 OCT 2019.

Saints & Souls

reckless savoir-vivre blank stares in each eye when we split, there’s no severance your fugitive, larcenous love is saturnine & dosed to the nines

She never goes to parties when there’s still light outside a whirling dervish with the torso of a Centaur making out with you is one long riot- sacred + profane you’re a buzz in the hours well before noon

when we’re swimming around in your room you turn of the lights we scale the heights higher than the moon gives me the shakes when you leave so damn soon We had forever & we still rushed it.    

Fried Dreams

close friends become old friends, who are then gone with the wind every time you fall into a new life, you ask- is this a dream again? and every time I reach for you in the night, you’re never here anymore, that’s why I sleep with the light on

every night since you’ve been gone you came and went like a short scene in a dream seems like you were only around for a line or two, now when I look into the mirror for a ghost, I can never seem to find you sleeping in the night with the light so bright

so I never really have to close my eyes, staring at the stars so I never see a sky so dark reaching for your song to get me to the dawn, the only way I keep from falling apart maybe we’ll be born again another century, and I can start chasing you all over again & so, until then, I sleep with my light on + my window open- you know I’ve been down for over a century.    

Time Fell 

Staring at the citrus moon, late in the cyanide afternoon, it’s a dicey, dismal affair constellations stuck in her hair   Harkening back to the time of radio & letters by post some of the best times, I still miss the most   You make me dizzy in the morning, I fall right back into bed, some days, I just unravel, time slows, goes backwards in my head  

And any which way you turn, I know you will be facing home, you went in so golden, came out all stone   Time leaped like eve onto adam, and then split like a Japanese atom, time froze twisted in mid-air and then it fell

OAK

I don’t remember what made me remember you tonight What made me look you up in a fog I’m happy someone is making you laugh in your photographs Fireworks & train-wrecks in faraway cities you know what to do when the time comes   love it when you do it too slow there you go the proof is in the puddle your season is wide open–  

Oh, I remember what made me think of you tonight it was some commercial for the 15-year anniversary edition a movie… (oh my, has it really been that long) Kissing underneath that billboard when that movie was playing in theatres We were laughing off time + we laughed it off for quite a while, too

You was jumping on the bed, I rolled my eyes to high heaven but now I see you were leading the symphony I was just your firefly for a light, anticipating & dissipating– all across your broken mirror night Looks like we’re both been off to the races since then- your son looks just like you, lucky kid I love it when from time to time you cross my mind just like that first night under the billboard and I get to remember meeting you, that’s my most favorite part    

Zeven

All my life, I think I was born to follow you 1,000 years on your trail, never a day goes by I’m chasing you, it never fails 1,000 summers, I’m after you-

  And if I have to live another 100 lives, I don’t mind forsaking heaven, crossing paths in burned out Zeven, I’m the one who takes that dare, One hundred winters, I don’t care- I am after your shadow, just to sit next to you on that train- & never say a word-  

And even after I become a ghost, I’ll be on the lookout for you, from coast to coast