With trembling fingers did we weave
The holly round the Christmas hearth;
A rainy cloud possess'd the earth,
And sadly fell our Christmas-eve.

At our old pastimes in the hall
We gambol'd, making vain pretence
Of gladness, with an awful sense
Of one mute Shadow watching all.

We paused: the winds were in the beech:
We heard them sweep the winter land;
And in a circle hand-in-hand
Sat silent, looking each at each.

Then echo-like our voices rang;
We sung, tho' every eye was dim,
A merry song we sang with him
Last year: impetuously we sang:

We ceased: a gentler feeling crept
Upon us: surely rest is meet:
"They rest," we said, "their sleep is sweet,"
And silence follow'd, and we wept.

Our voices took a higher range;
Once more we sang: "They do not die
Nor lose their mortal sympathy,
Nor change to us, although they change;

"Rapt from the fickle and the frail
With gather'd power, yet the same,
Pierces the keen seraphic flame
From orb to orb, from veil to veil."

Rise, happy morn, rise, holy morn,
Draw forth the cheerful day from night:
O Father, touch the east, and light
The light that shone when Hope was born.

DEATH comes once, let it be easy.
Ring one bell for me once, let it go at that.
Or ring no bell at all, better yet.
  
Sing one song if I die.
Sing John Brown's Body or Shout All Over God's Heaven.
Or sing nothing at all, better yet.
  
Death comes once, let it be easy.

I miss the confusion
of who had
cigarette breath
when we kissed,
or who’s pack was who’s,
but what I miss the most
is the thought of
killing myself with
the one I love.
                                 MJB

Sunday morning,
the air froze, the dahlias
once bloomed angry,
now they shiver and sigh.

Autumn breeze, faint but still,
the padded ghost-steps
of your laugh, running wild,
like vintage photographs;
scattered Polaroids of
my memory - a smile here,
a grimace there.

How the heat of
emotions buries itself
in the clothes of yesterday,
How difficult it is to
fetch from the seams.
The needles only *****
at a faint feeling.

I wonder; do you forget me
as winter forgets the living?

Because once an old man
told me I had sad eyes

Sunsets melt to chalky lines,
like cigarette stubs, they died
when you met her.

These days only my fingers
remember summer,
I touch the hearts of others
to warm them too.

My voice wind chimes,
the eulogy of the storm,
when I breath your
name I shudder...

And listen-
because I am in
the echoes
of her, of us.