"I see the light"
Your wife bitterly cries  
Go to the light
I love you so much baby
Go to the light,
Please go to the light

In yourself you hear her.
You trust her.
Nothings here.
Nothings there.
Nothings good.
Nothing's bad

You're peaceful
You're resting
You're floating closer
And closer
And closer
To

The light

You've entered the light

Outside
The nurse registers 10:25 am time of death

Inside,
The light  Burns
The light burns as bright as snow

It Hurts
It Stings
And it's blurry

You start to clear your eyes and you make out a field of corn,
Crotch high
Feathered at the ends

Trees come in from the sides
And you see it's a beautiful sunny day,
The Clouds are out
But they're few
And how pillowy white they are

You're eyes clear a little more
And you see him,
Dressed in white
Coming towards you

You make out his face
And you see by his walk that it's him

You're heart burst so badly that it hurts
The kind of pain that breaks you down to your knees and immediately you cry

You cry hard and you cry loud
And you cry fast

The joy of knowing you made it overwhelms you so entirely that you cramp up into the fedal position
Finally you say sorry lord

I never deserved any of this

how serenely he sleeps
under the bodhi tree
the blessed Gautama

The pain I feel when I see your name show up in my contacts.

I become expressionless like stone, then I shatter.

I was up until 4 a.m. last night,

You guessed it, crying.

From 11 to 4,

I cried.

Six hours I cried,

And hours before, I died.

But getting the news in public,

The news that you were leaving me

You were leaving me again, another time,

It was too much for me to handle and I broke.

My eyes teared up, and I ran off into my head again.

I will never say to your face how much I cried over you.

And trust me if you come around again I'll likely take you back.

Because I'm stupid, and I don't learn my lesson when it's taught to me.

I'd take you back despite the pain and I'd take you back through everything.

I suppose I'm just as weak when it comes to you as you are when it comes to lying.

What remained was the greatest
cover I have ever seen.
I will always know
what lies beneath
your facade,
beyond the beautiful surface
has rotted the inside
with a marred obsession
of social scrutiny.

It is a book of memories
back is the best place
where I go to face the dark space.

Snot, and red wet skin
fear, and all those beatings
is where the meat of me
fits perfectly.

I race in haste
to waste away in pain
because I do not want
to revisit those memories again.

Emergency room,
holds a one-legged man.
Doctor says he is alright
but the next day he is dead.

However, back is where
the right words remain;
Back where I feel tears
slip down my cheeks
where poetry speaks,
where it moves me.
I open the pages
Turning each one tentatively.

I see my little brother
from baby to man
we just had dinner
just like we planned
and he’s engaged.
He’s has his own place.
We picked up the furniture.
That was almost yesterday

Now back is done.
The page is almost complete
This is where the present
and the paper meets
and ever after is
only white sheets.
See I have go back
to find my present peace.

I lie here tracing my own skin
Drawing invisible lines between
My freckles so meticulously placed
Because who will marvel at
The contour of my wrists
And the sharp edges of my hips
If not me?

I envy your heart,
Its beating

I lost mine
P
  I
    E
       C
          E
By piece
A dried up and dead rose
All that remains

No matter the amount of blood I've spilt
Trying to fill my veins

I see you have rosy cheeks, a smile
May I borrow them,
Just for awhile?

I may return
Yet
More likely burn

But your rosey cheeks,
How they invite

I'm hungry
Give me just
        A
B
  I
   T
     E~A

fine Furhman's Funeral Home
used the best alchemy money could
buy, to keep her flesh fresh

and a master seamstress
sewed her wicked wounds so not
a single soul could see

she was stabbed forty times
from her rubicund cheeks to her
pedicured toes

Furhman's was the best, above
the mediocre rest, in gifting mourners
with a pleasant view

when I got their bill in the mail
it had an itemized list, which included
a charge I had to contest

not because of penury or pettiness
for I am a wealthy weeping father, but
I couldn't see spending a red dime

for crimson polish they painted
on dead toes, slid in slick hose, and
hid in patent leather shoes

my wife said write a check for the
full amount, crying this was not about
what we the living could yet see

Baton Rouge, April, 1989