At death the brain must flood with DMT
For one to see fluorescent waterfalls
And feel warmth and love
After rising out of a world of hate
Now breathless you breathe with ease
Now flat-lined you surge with love
Now brain-dead you see all
Why didn’t you understand before
Why did it take your death to come alive
To see the light through the door
To see fluorescent waterfalls appear
To see Jesus and your grandfather
And to feel drawn to so much love
That to return the soul recoils  
You ask to stay but are told to return
To serve some penance in our hell
Where the righteous fade and the vile rise

A door opens like the birth of a child
Like the death of an old man
Who opens his eyes and sees at last
A door opens like sunlight through a cloud
You who haven’t seen it
Refuse to believe but a door opens
A door most definitely opens
And you step through
You turn to look back at your body
But the light is too bright
Pain now gone your way now clear
A door opens and you’re home

I flowed in the river
Went deep, thought I’d drown
But a branch caught my hand
I drifted through the unbearable purity
Of this water
I don’t know how long
The water stung my flesh
Until it washed me clean
I moved toward the bank
Where tree and leaf reflections
Shimmered on the surface
A palimpsest of light and shade
I saw souls in the shape of fish
Basking in eternity
I don’t know how
I stepped out of that water
It wasn’t my time
Still, I am the river
And I flow as I walk

for *** and Joe

This was way before computers and cell phones.
Some of you might remember.
You needed collections and anthologies of verse,
An atlas, an encyclopaedia, several dictionaries,
A Bible and The Golden Bough,
Brief Lives: A Biographical Companion to the Arts--
And, of course, a good study of poetic form and meter.
It was also nice to keep the spirit flowing
With several open bottles of wine,
And the sweet smell of Acapulco Gold
To keep the spirit whirling,
Like some ancient chant or music,
And two good friends who loved poetry.    
That’s how poems were made.

I went to the other side
And saw one I loved
She lowered her head when I called
I saw my mother and father
Standing in the mist
Their faces pale and soft
Tell me it is you mother
Tell me it is you father
And amid the multitudes
I saw my brother
In all his sadness
Searching for his son
And I heard my father
Ask a question in my mind
What have you become
What have you become
And then I woke
To face what remains of me now

Now that you’ve lost everything
Are you ready
To fall back on the stars
Now that you carry the weight
Of the past
Are you ready
For the lightness of being
Now that you’ve been broken
Are you ready to be whole
Leave what you own
It belongs to the earth
You belong to what’s beyond
Are you ready
Yes I am ready

These are spring clouds
Lingering behind leafless trees,
Spreading into purest blue.
Am I seeing things again,
Or is it just a case of pareidolia?
Faces bright with sunlight,
Angels in my skies,
Swans in my eyes,
Milkweed on my mind,
Apple blossoms in my rhyme,
Heaps of assurance
For fairer weather.