It wouldn’t do
to take my eyes off of you,
to pretend for one second that
you weren’t always on my mind.
I think about you all the time.
I could not act as if
your lips, strayed from our kiss,
left me unbereft of emptiness.
You are hardly forgotten,
nor will you be unmissed.
It would be a lie,
an affront to try,
a ruse, miscarried, and so belie
that in your absence I am not fine,
that I am not happy but resigned.
I could not affect
hiding a heart unchecked,
strength in the shade of your neglect.
Your going has weight to it and heft.
it is tissue and breathing flesh.
I am removed of the rest
of you, gone but for darkness.
It has dimension, place and depth.
Your lack is all remaining of you,
a presence only in my head.
When she laughs and I hear her,
walking in front of her or behind,
no matter our distance, I am near her;
every thought replaced in my mind.
The water of it, jumping, pouring,
amid her lips, flowing, soaring
from her neck, her head thrown back,
igniting all the air she breathes,
in thrilling fingerprints she leaves
on me with what her laughter says.
And what her laughter says is that,
“I am nowhere else but with you now.”
Then, this having been announced,
the space around her levitates;
it becomes a little weightless,
those who surround her, elevating
endowing on the air the traces
of lightning the the water chases,
the flash of flame that dances
in splashes on the water’s faces
down the dips and rippling places,
the liquid-moving surface embraces,
makes electric that air with luster;
her voice is joy and life recovered.
Her voice is notes of sunlit motes
like fireflies that closely float
nearby, in late summer, and never rest
the parts of them that softly glow.
When she talks, it’s like her laughter
is gathered up in bales together,
in melodies, and gently tethered,
bound in bands of calfskin leather
as brocaded locks of golden heather.
Her words redound the gales of air
then from her laughter’s music,
all at oncelyrics are there.
So, her laughter has its overture,
its denouement, and a quiet end,
when her slowly fading singing,
maintains yet still delicate ringing,
even as outside a silence tries,
to eclipse her choir inside from sight,
its memory made friable by daylight.
Her laughter is more gorgeous still
than any words I could ever write.
Suspended over landscaped greens and streets,
on pillars raised and columns all arrayed,
above the roads, rivers and gazing plains
are held aloft the wires, pathways and veins.
Through towns and over lakes, you can see them
strung in a web and woven into lace
a few feet higher than our sightline.
They innervate the tissue of the earth
and pass along them amber sparks that race
crepitating along braided fiber
twlangling the wires I mentioned priorr
attired in flesh, sealed and safe, crystal plaits
withstand the siege of nature buffeting them
and would surely cast them far off their course.
//
All the world they break
into a million pixels
light to be refracted
trade to be conveyed.
//
In single file, and yet as one, they dance
along the currents of the capillaries,
the strands of light and passage,
fluorescent beams always clashing above,
stranger to their goal and course.
They disassemble our desires,
manhandle our wants and our intentions.
Unseen they must have been,
and in all details attended,
with care once reassembled.
Sparks rearrange these feelings into parts
and pack them by section within parcels,
writing upon each one in careful hand
the address of final destination.
//
To us they bring back visions, symphonies,
literature, all civilization.
Though most of all they bring us others.
They carry to our trembling hands letters,
messages we long dreaded receiving.
They dive in flight under the half-done light.
We see and hear our love complete that light,
almost embracing those whom we hold dear,
milling stone to dust, burning glass from sand,
the strands author it upon cresting wave,
igniting peals of tears that fell for years
by heartbreak, injury, into vapor.
//
By wonder carried, borne on westward wind,
their silent embers slowly lose their heat.
They rest before they quiet, task complete,
surrendering to merely be, and gleam.
The programs should be on decent paper.
Do not spend much on printing, still,
get something eggshell, ivory or beige.
Something not so stark as white, more champagne.
It should be a single sheet divided,
precisely folded on the longer side.
The page’s contents aren’t of much substance
my birth, the date and place, and when I died,
with no embossed or gilded lettering,
just very dark, flat gray for mourning.
Don’t go crazy with songs, poems, speeches;
pleaselove of godno acoustic guitars.
Let’s keep this thing short; a tight twenty five.
I’ll not take up your precious sunday rest,
I’m not sure any one will even come.
If they are still alive, my parents will.
My brother and his family would be.
I’m not sure why I am always
imagining my brother with a son.
My cousins’ families move on along.
My other living aunts and uncles.
It’s possible I married;
maybe she will come.
After a threadbare biographical précis,
anyone who wants to can say their piece,
provided it’s actually reasonably succinct.
Tell them they should say whatever they want
but all must tell the whole of the truth.
Then, whomever is leading this thing,
church pastor, volunteer or priest:
please thank everyone for coming
and wish each of them well
on each of their paths.
In the event I am to be interred,
along the coffin, following beside me,
don’t bother with a march of pallbearers.
Avoid reading or speaking at my grave.
All should come later, on their own and say
those ideas they want me to hear that day.
Right now, aloud, with everyone around,
Just let them dump me in the ground,
splash cold dirt and grime across me,
in a lonely tract of land somewhere
over hills of silty earth.
You don’t need a reception.
One location is enough.
Either don’t have one at all,
or have it at the church
where the funeral was.
Or, if the plan is I be cremated,
you can get an urn. But I’ll be
incinerated by a riot of heat and fire,
coming to rest in cinder and ash.
If you want the charcoal that remains
as arid scoria, use the cardboard box
included with the funeral home’s
base pricing package.
I’d get rid of me, if I were you.
On a weekday, squeeze in as an errand
finding a place with picturesque potential,
a cliff where the wind will carry me away
if you but let my sinter catch the air.
You’re allowed an impromptu roadtrip
taken to the closest national park,
hurrying to dump me, because you found out
spreading ashes needs a permit in congaree.
Wipe my residue off your clothes as you leave.
Now it’s over. It took longer than I wanted,
but compared to other ceremonies
it was a paragon of brevity…
…everyone just go, climb in your cars
and drive them to your own remaining time.
Mornings have always been
my favorite part of the day.
Now, in 2022, I exulted in them.
finally I was, in timely order,
righting my life again,
developing the many skills
I imagined I would need for it.
I’d always affixed my target north;
my course was now fatidic.
Two calamitous years ago,
back when I was happy,
in late fall, through midwinter,
I would awaken, rising every morning
at five AM in dark desolation,
when it was cold enough outside
my breath would mist itself,
wrapped by air in silver shells.
Eating breakfast piecemeal
medications, vitamins and supplements
all while smoking cigarettes,
surrounded by morning all around.
I smoked in the adjacent day
watching windows, one by one,
fill with yellow light their empty gray
until my car was heated up,
the ice cleared off the glass.
I always hated scraping that myself.
My life had always been aimed at this place
I was thrilled to be alive,
killed to find the right.
and had now arrived.
I was even starting to look forward to it.
I was about to work out.
I had been moving faster,
preparing to strain myself,
clambering the stairmaster
not minding pain, not self-defeating
Finally I claimed a step of control
over my life, my body and my eating.