He is dead, and
He used to come and knock at my door
With his shoes undone
His face lit up with a van Gogh grin.
Young artist in the world
Contracting his vision from the noisy space
Of busy, night-lit, city streets,
But he is dead, and
These streets I walk are of a meaner face
Now he is gone.

Gone beneath the brown and barrowed earth
Heaped over him,
Gone beneath the life I've piled
On top of passing life to stop
His sometimes violent memory,
The vivid recollection of moments that
Won't come again,
That haunt the chapels of an aging mind
Which can't escape or span,
Which cannot bridge the water's deep
Disturbing flow.

Yes, you are gone my friend
The choreography of life is lost
Though life rolls on,
No eyes with which to see the world
No voice to fill the world with song,
The sunbeam burst through the sudden shower
Which lights along this city street,
Moves nothing now, moves inland,
Far away from this
Unconscious world.