The little girl in a red jacket, skipping across
A pedestrian bridge made me smile today.
Her jacket was so red against the pure blue sky,
She seemed to be telling me something.
Spring was just a skip away, just a jump away,
And then she leapt into spring with joy,
And with a smile, I drove beyond winter at last.

Car chimes was what *** called  
All the bottles Joe would gather,
Drinking in the back seat on road trips,
Passenger to his own joyful reeling.  

Joe couldn’t go without drinking,
It was the poetry in his blood.
*** and I would do the driving
With Joe happily reciting W.H. Davies:

“No man to pluck my sleeve and say—
I want thy labour for this day;
No man to keep me out of sight,
When that dear Sun is shining bright.”

And when he’d recite those poems
The bottles would begin to chime
In rhythm to his tapping feet,
Music to our ears, laughter to our tears.

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