Beneath the Autumn willow tree
Sat a lonely bird.

Once it flew high enough
to curse the heavens

Before it was cast down by
The desert winds.

But now it rests, becoming the wind
as it takes flight

for the last time.

You are there-
At the heart of existence
Crawling in memories
Surging inside the branches
of my aortic archway
like a cascade of wastewater
sending the last bits
of exuberance away
into exile.


You slither beneath
a pile of hopeful dreams-
the rash and folly of youth
Their hearts ripped apart
by your front fangs
Your voracious tongue
splashes my depth
and dips its venom
in my flowing pith-
pleasure. .


So you are there!
Everytime I look for breath
in my creaky chest
but find only cigarette smoke
drifting away from 'your' lungs.
There's a glow at night
that of the firefly in me-
I guess, or the end
of your seventh cigarette
I cannot tell.

Nobody sees you these days
But you are still there.
I always sense your mischievous fingers
and ecstatic half-open eyes
a moment before I realise
You are really gone.

Every night I shut my eyes
In the hope of a new 'morrow
Only to see the sun rise
To the same, sullen sorrow!