your last poem will be a clammy corpse
you may well die grinning,
eyes wide open, unseeing
fingers clasping a last wish, a last cigarette
blue lips a last prayer
the pale colour of your skin, sickly grey
a last moan on the journey to the morgue.

death is my bride
she waits at the altar

I cannot see her face
she is faceless

but I am hers
as she is mine.

forever in transition
body clocks counting

death waits for the living
while the living live in denial

a friend in a coffin
makes an eloquent statement

they are never coming back
their goodbye is final.

just passing through
just passing out
just passing.

Fleeting acquaintance.

with enormous expectations
like those of being a noted artist
from the suburban sidewalks of
the ***** streets of Michigan

ended up in the Air Force
the hair cut was the worst
had my hair down to my ***
exited with it barely over my ears

I wanted to get educated find
Something, I didn't know what,
in society and attended college
one semester

I would dedicate myself fully
the next party too hard,
so it took me
eight years

to get a Bachelor's degree
by then had two kids
a wife and an extended family
of her mom grandma, sister

aunts papas all of us in a house together
when I got a paying job finally
she didn't want to leave all the
unhired help the unpaid diaper changers

and she stayed there
I moved on and it tore my ***** into
small pebbly stones all shrunken up
all alone in a big house

bent my nights up with a tab
at the bar and loose women and
giggly ******
sometimes  thinking most times not

I gave up then found a new she
and when I did the ex came crawling back and
I admit I used her
revenge *** is some of the best

I got ****** bereft of feelings for a long time
had a callous heart I found a few
years laters again
on the side of a small town

called Clayhatchee.
where the streets are
repaved and the dogs
run free

along side me old
all keeping pace with my
strides of going nowhere
ever again
dreamily