It was spring when the old things get cleared away
and I opened a drawer that was mostly closed now;
in the back was a ring of keys I hadn't touched forever
because the doors they opened were gone.

My first car, a castoff from my father we used in high school
to go to practice, or for hamburgers, or to the movies
in a time when that was the most fun we could have.
I see the boys now, smiling and singing songs you never hear anymore.

The key to my the apartment I had going to school, a little place
I shared with Jimmy Redd just off campus where we
drank, caroused and learned how to cook hamburger helper
between working and going to class.

The key to my first office and the house I bought where
some of my kids lived and I had a future
that was wasted by trusting people whose most important
love was in the mirror every morning

Then there were no keys for years when I could not unlock
the doors I lived behind in places where
the only comfort was a date yet to come as I waited
and the world turned without me, changing everything

Which turned out to be for the best
For the last unused key was to my first home after leaving high school
the place love became real and where the missing part
of me had been waiting through her own trials.

I smiled and held the keys tight then put them back into the drawer
they are not useless as I thought
because the doors they open are those I will
always be able to enter.

Bring me forth
          from that nightflow
magnet for I
    have heard the calls
of my guardians
they have beckoned
                 me into a visionary stupor
pulled my head from the
           quicksand's mulch
my daily chores whirling
                         from my hands
             they are spinning me around
like a an electric charged
                   whirlpool of light
all objects caught up in
its path
             be they leaves
                              or rocks
or household appliances
and I am casting to hell
and highwater
            all of those warnings
as sacred adorations
nick into my solitude
I fling my demons to the skies
          release them to their
                              own salvation
I do not wish them before
                            my eyes
as I work my own deliverance
of beatitudes
   my own song of songs
spun into the glowing
Let them sputter and trip
over their words
           My inner hearing closes
upon their petty phrases as
they mouth them out of sync
             The path opens up before me
               as riverflow
                       in one graceful arc
Here I fight in my own
               siege of Orléans
No point in stopping me
because the vestige of
flickering truth is turning
into the solid molecules
                    of freedom's spark
right before
             your very eyes

When I am gone and you lay me low, do not weep for me, I would not want it so. Throw a party, invite my friends and enemies alike. Serve my favorite foods and take utter delight. Drink until you have had your fill, the tab is on me. Its the least I can do, because you had to put up with me. Know with comfort that I have gone on to a better place. Some where more peaceful I think. So remember me with fondness or remember me with a leer. How ever you like, drink up and be of good cheer. If you are my friend, know that you will be missed. If you are my enemy, then to you I say this. You have finally won, I met my fate. Just take a moment while your sober to think of who you will now hate. So take stock of your own lives, and say farewell as I go to my eternal rest. Shed no tears for me unless their of joy, just celebrate my death.