Couldn't see the rain before it flooded everywhere.

Fearful are those
Who do nothing to help themselves

Fearful are those
Who have lost the people closest to them

Fearful are those
Who cry in the nightime

I am all of these things.

I fear what I do not know.

In a medically induced coma
The patient was divorced from time.
He wandered from room to room
in the chambers of his mind.
Memories of long ago;
things and people he’d left behind,
Competed for his attention
with all his kith and kind.
Ghosts of family, dead and gone,
came face to face at last,
with his children’s children
at a glorious repast.
He bellied up against the bar
with some friends he’d  lost in Nam.
They looked no worse for being dead
For what seemed a very long time.
They raised a glass to memory
and gave a toast to Time.
The barkeep said “its Final Call!”


and his monitor flat lined.

On the 1:28 a.m. train
all that have left to ride west
are the night shifts
high on coffee and hope
the lonely rock climbers
with caves under their eyes
and the young lovers
too late to stay out
too early to say goodbye.

silent screamers  
once dreamers
pulling the weight
of a fat man's gait  
through party
streamers

The best thing keeping me up is the people who try to tear me down.