It amazes me that it took until the last minute of my life-
once lived and defined by the sorrows and my strife,
While I stand below the gallows (at least not by a knife)-
To realize my merits and that my spirit, eroded by my pain,
Was yet still gleaming, and my heart beaming
Though i was about to die.

Yet i stand here above the rest of you, on a stool that i earned;
Below a fitted noose, looking down.
And i see the jealousy in your eyes because you know I've won.
All along, held inside me was the greatness i never felt
And the death i once pondered-the one i sought- was never dealt.

I've come to my ending
Guilty of being grim
Charged with ungratefulness
And convicted of having sinned

Though in the end all that matters,
Was that i fully lived
Though only for one last minute
Ive no more reason to misgive

As the wreath hangs about my neck
I look once more upon your face
I chuckle as i fall
And smile before i brace

Sincerely,
The Merry Hangedman

"I need to make more art"
I say today. But not tomorrow,
tomorrow I am heading west, again,
into a new notebook I've titled, "Chapter 3"

And my friends, the poets
weight a web from their pupils, to their hangedman's shame
but I will just tell you about my morning:
the coffees I sipped, the hours clocked.
I scraped the edges from my fingernails
with the tip of my traveling knife.

Last night I shared a cigarette on the fire escape,
while Rachel cried about her leaving friend.
Looking at the sky, trying to conjure a feeling of insignificance.
But all I could feel was mighty...

(musing that, like topiary,
perhaps one day I'll not have nails at all.)