We drove by the cemetery in a different part of town
Searching for another restaurant where we didn't really want to go
And suddenly I remembered you were there; that is, your clam shell was there
Carefully wrapped and placed underground, somewhere among the thousands
Your inexpensive namecard merely flat brass; invisibly close to the ground
And I thought of the oddness of life;
Here I was with two people you never got to meet,
Who meant everything to me, as you did back when,
And indeed always will. And back in my touchy days of grief
I could not have envisioned a happy day
On a drive beside where you lay,
Busy composing your still reverie for the ages.

So life goes on, however we wish it would not at times,
And though it is difficult to believe, we do get better, by and by.
And though the Earth will not remember one flower
That we knew together,
I realized the cemetery ground is made hallowed
By all the love and faithful memories being poured into it:
I'm pouring in mine now-
Who knows, perhaps it will flood?

Life can mesmerize with smiles;
But when it weeps beware, beware:
Your tears would fill a mountain stream
That's rushing past, before Life care.

And when you laugh, you laugh alone,
Though you might think the flowers too
Would giggle at a word you said;
The flowers thoughts are very few.

We are not often understood;
The world speaks in different tongues,
Though we may think that ours would be
The only universal one.

Well now I'd sell my soul for a pound
Of words: all picked clean of ambiguity;
Rocks and detritus removed,
Preselected for clarity of meaning
Predestined for the musical familiarity
Measured out for rhyme and syncopation
Delivered by some gum chewing, ball-capped deviant
Nervously glancing up and down the street
As he slips me the stash, and I hand over the cash.
Yes, what a dream; instead of the frown
Then the squint; with a curse on the scribbled, marked through letters
Killing, resurrecting, then killing them all over again
Buried, dug up, and reanimated
Embalmed, only to be cast again on the bone pile
Trying to remove the threadbare impressions
With the worn out, gnawed upon pink eraser
Drooling, staring at the clock, eating more junk food
In between the hours of crisis and midnight
The only right answer being
To eradicate whatever I like
And leave alone whatever makes me uncomfortable
Impossible task: insipidity ruins the brilliance
The plot's flaccid and lacking moral filibuster
The characters weep and sing at the wrong times.
What kind of a racket
Doesn't even have a black market
To turn to when you're desperate,
And you've got to die
To have your name be remembered,
If indeed it ever would be.

Proximity-
My knee touches yours under the table;
Adults we are, a knee excites no molecules
In our experienced repertoires.

Proximity-
Shoulder to shoulder, in the airplane
Trained to be busy, to keep alive;
No time for sensation or idle daydreaming.

Proximity-
Two hearts beating, back-to-back, in a fertile darkness;
And a long gaping drop-off, just before the edge of forever:
Every cell too keenly aware..

And the letter came:
And you thumbed, humbled, over it and over
An hundred times a week, you took it out
Pouring each word over again
As for the first time, it still was
And blotchy it was from tears
And tips, nervous fingers which pulled little rips
Into the off-white paper, where much strong handling bore
Each time's grief bearing need: you read it, nothing more
Seen differently; surely always the same, yet nuances
Came despite instinctual knowledge of before;
Did this sentence- this wording style preferred it
That he might mean only just that- or was it
Imagination's sullied creation? did those words
Sound tired; and if very thought of you
Became fatigue, was it the plague of his precious pen, or brain
Or just the worry of his own entrenchment there?
Even so; sometimes you read familiar words
That joy shouted from, certain as could be.
Times when you felt uneasy, queasy at one word
Or phrase, as if a ringing death-knell must have
Rang: to spell out the end of time's bitter being-
Crossed yourself, three times; and said a beaded prayer.
The letter came to be important to you that this
Could cause everything to cease; a hunt driven
Feverish, once it went missing where from out it's pocket-house
(deeply as when you bent under the trees..
to pick up crying children in their frail need) it leaped.
And when one day unfolding, the letter dropped into your lap
Pieces neat piled into sections; folds perforated through
Because so nearly worn out; stained, thin-souled as grief itself
Heart treasure map woven in lover's lace; bequeathed
And then realized: there no other letter ever was or be;
If never sent, gone missing; you'd pinned all quickened heart beats
Stayed hope's courage upon a single letter's fate, and it
Carried through the fears, saw above the swarming years
Sleepless nights when, no tears left, it swam: you gathered up the limp
Damp, feathered pieces and stowed them safe for keeping
Knowing some day again, when things were not the same
And finding them you would remember, this single letter
By which all hope then was given, your hope that came
As a single letter; came due south, straight down from heaven..

I envy the cool darkness, now we're apart
And the warmth which wrapped your body:
Cocooned by your breathing,
The secret shadows and angles
Which gradually changed every hour
Like a dark sundial recording
All your limbs tiniest convolutions.

I know there was a sort of
Kabalistic synchronicity
Some algebraic function
And if only I'd studied more;
If only I'd applied myself better
I wouldn't have gotten all the equations wrong
Lost the notes, failed the exam.

I remember those once acute angles
How they fit so perfectly my body's contours
Our seams vanished together, smooth soldered
In the same molten dream; mouth to mouth
Torso upon torso, moving wave unfurled
Water of twin oceans, mingled-
Now it's only the moonlight that burns.

I'm reading along, like a galloping fawn,
And then something trips me, as I hurtle along;
I land smack on my head, and then I look back;
There's something has tripped me, right there on the track-

Well, it's a stray 'thee'; and as pretty as you please,
That all of a sudden popped up, like the breeze;
I was reading along, quite all unaware,
And suddenly - boom! a 'thee' did appear.

I gather my courage and try to get up,
But before I can manage, to pick up my stuff,
It happens again; who would have thunk it;
I stand up and hit my head, square on a lunkett!

Looking above, I can see why and how:
It's because I have bumbled, into a stray 'thou';
Who would have guessed, it would cause me to blunder;
Cause the last time I saw one, was late eighteen-hundred!

The last one is worst; you know it, of course;
Almost fell on my head like an anvil, the curse!
This one more insidious, than all the others;
When a 'thine' smacks your backside, you'll not want another!

So be careful, when reading the words of the day,
And watch where you walk, even walking away;
For, if you're not careful, you could have some pain
When the archaic words come, to beat you again.