Rough endings somehow fade, and how
We laughed grows stronger.  Tears you cried
When he was gone reminded my
Rough hands how soft to hold a love
And not insist on anything.

Things for which there are no words are good things
To consider.  Words that proved imperfect--
Though we never did know why--can't make us
Understand the cause for separation,
As if disorder needed reason, no
Explaining it's the other way around.
And where once I wore a reasonable
Face, now you get around it with a smile.

The things we have no use for anymore
line the sidewalk where chalk once marked hopscotch
for days before the rain washed it away.
Back then one night we listened all night long
to Joni Mitchell  and Charlie Mingus,
most likely Miles Davis, Louis Armstrong,
Jimi Hendrix.  Things led to things; we danced,
we drank red wine.  I've known no better time.

Sell the records, the sofa with my long impression.
Give away what doesn't sell.
What I dread is not the night but morning,
coffee in an empty room, black coffee scalding hot. Don't sell the coffee maker.
It's a good one, very hard to replace.

Nineteen nights in a bed with rails
gave me time to reconsider,
with nothing left to interrupt,
my own unnecessary place
beside you.  Do you understand
why a bad actor like myself
would give it up, get out for good?
Dying is a sinner's haven.

Life will be the difficulty.
Teach me when I'm ready for it
if you have the patience and the
time.  Don't give up when I tell you
lies. I am not brave enough.  Who
is?  We need each honest hour.

and when you lie awake at night,
unsatisfied with what's been said--
what can be said--is any heart
articulate and unafraid
of saying things unhearable?
October is a crucible.

The mind is rough, a place
Where time gets lost.
The future wears a sad look in its eye
And I  cannot remember it as well
As it seems I should, for drawing closer
Than the past, so dutifully recalled,
Awake, asleep, ever borrowed and spent--
Overdue bills, coffee-stained reminders
That I'm still alive in someone's judgement,
Represented in a row of crosses.

Erase it all, imagine everything
Untold,
No story spoken, nothing
Overheard,
An unstrung voice--rose petals Dropped
At dawn,
Beneath what tree olives or green
Apples
Issac's lot. The question having not been
Answered. Music, though essential, tells us
Nothing.

Each new crowning, where Peter upside down
Betrayed no longer any human god
Alone somehow connected  until now
The empty skull accepts a tuning held
Across so many faces whose sorrow,
Unbelievable as truth so often
Takes on its characteristic pallor,
Insisting we are none of us forever.

How something you didn't know you needed
Can come to be the thing you need the most,
A way to breathe beneath the waves until
Someone like me or you, unlikely friend,
Absorbs the pain, the sweet perfume, instead
Of telling you you're on your own. You've had
Enough watered down love, I know it well,
And yet a stronger shot could prove the cure.

This is not air, just music in a word.
I won't call it anything it isn't.
I've has my share of lovers hating love.
You come again and I'm the helpless man
Who gives you things that vanish in the air,
Thick now with my relentless submissions.