“Can you get your head
Off my breast,” she said,

The dead weight was killing her,
Sending messages

To her brain to get
The pain-in-the-****

Off of her, go back to sleep;
But when she gazed at him,

At his fine shaped,
Dark-haired, head,

She relented,
Let him lay his head

And thought of him
Dying there instead.

Nothing in the cry
of cicadas suggests they
are about to die

This marble pedestal,
that has me so high up
like an extraterrestrial,
is causing a lack of oxygen
my thoughts drift from neurons
to the tip of my pen
so many questions without answers
so many things giving me cancer
my own thoughts jousting
after the sting of a friend's syllables
even though I try and be gold
they still hold me up
push me to the clouds
where I will die for want of air
but if I jump down
I drown

Laid to rest,
stone in place,
legend chiselled
and name
and words
and such,
flowers
in place.

Laid to rest-
but not,
my son,
for us,
the memories too strong,
too recent ,
to put to sleep or rest.

Waves of it rush
against the shores of self,
digging in deep,
pushing heart
and sense aside,
raising the ghostly
images to sight.

Who spoke last?
Who conversed
in final hours?
How dark the ward.
I helped you
best I could.

Unknowing,
promised
of the morrow returning,
but then too late,
just the comatosed you
to greet, the last
drawn out day of demise.

Laid to rest,
stone in place,
words chiselled,
ashes encased,
buried, flowers,
prayers said.

You,
my son,
stoic by nature,
warrior to the core;
why does
the sun rise?
What was
it all for?

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you.
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pur whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the ****** and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's
in there.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to ***** up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do
you?