Sometimes it is, poor Sylvia,
that we cannot find the answers. They're
not to be found clinking about in the stars,
blowing about in the August wind,
or blooming among the tea flowers, no matter
how scented. No charlatan soothsayer discerns.
No pull of the cards deciphers. If answers come
at all they'll be found deep within yourself, only.
Don't we all prove that countless, wretched
times? But know this, dear Sylvia, even though it's too
late for your sanity and your life, your daddy didn't
die because of you, for you, by you. Death simply
drew the line and pulled him across.

What were you to do when life puzzled you
to the limit, when all poems disappointed,
when the ink failed to flow smoothly,
the pen tore at the paper and the paper
turned to ash before a line could be written down?
What to do when your child's smile failed to ignite
motherhood, when Daddy's image floated in and out, when
emotional pain dragged you terrified under its
black cerement, that cold, wet, smothering grave cloth?

Fear, oh my God, fear, and the doubt that you had,
the whirling about of a shattered mind, bouncing
from this trap to the other - your muted, stifled inner
screams unheard, or worse, unexpressed. Yes,
you found a solution, poor Sylvia, but suicide
doesn't always equate with an answer. You found a
sad poem, a dirge to be exact, something that moves
us, but there is no rhyme to it and the ending is an
enigma, a great puzzle yet to be invoked, understood.

----

We'd laugh at life
if it weren't so serious;
we'd laugh at death
if we weren't afraid;
we'd laugh at pain
if it didn't hurt so much;
we'd laugh at circumstances
but we'd get nowhere.
I suppose, truth be known,
we'd laugh if only we
hadn't forgotten how.

--

A drink isn't hard to swallow,
but a divorce, a lost child, death, they are.
The wind comes up, blows away dreams,
ends marriages, sifts through plans,
hopes, throws out what it wants.

A drink isn't hard to swallow,
but growing old, pain, dying dogs, they are.
The wind comes up, tears our garments,
exposes our frailties, our nakedness,
thoughtlessly shreds our defenses.
At times like these
A drink isn't hard to swallow.
---

I've been trying to poet off and on
now for awhile - but it's hard for a guy
like me, born and raised in small towns.

I've never really learned to swear,
not like a poet anyway. Not like Bukowski.
I mean, what kind of poet would

the world expect me to be? Except that
I'll admit I can drink with the best.
A Huffstickler I'm not, or a Bukowski,

or Etter, or Kerouac - guys who knew the
big towns, the *****, the dives, the rehabs,
the back alleys, park benches, soup kitchens,

flop houses, drug pushers — Humm, come to
think of it, we got all those here. But not
the all-important big town poet attitude.

I'm just this hick, delusional perhaps,
trying to fill a blossoming hole inside
of me that grumbles and claws for more,

and there's gotta be more to life than this crap.
In poeting I used to try and rhyme, like as
in "poor" and "*****", but there's

no rhyme to life, just grab it and clench.
Just life, death, burial and maybe a little
something for the dog afterwards.

The preacher says there's more,
the devil tells me to forget it,
(I'll listen to him occasionally).

So, for me, I'll probe a little deeper and
scrutinize a little harder, perhaps drink a
little heavier, and maybe find a plug

out there that'll fill the hole inside me.
Maybe even put it in words.
Become a poet.
--

I would hope to die early
should I grow too old to dream,
to believe in something,
anything, or feel the red-hot surge
of ambition and love's pulsing.

--

She walks as though she were a queen,
this woman who walks beside me - head
held high, chin up, striding confidently.
If she is a queen what does that make me?
I am no king, certainly not much at all
in my reckoning, but still she walks with me,
occasionally taking my hand in hers.
She must think more of me than do I -
how could I not treat her like a queen?

--

My mother died alone in the nursing home.
That sweet mouth that once whispered
comfort to my child's ear when I cut a lip,
scraped a knee, or suffered my first heartbreak,
was now open to the world, awkwardly caught
in a gasp for one more precious breath of life.

She so richly deserved my presence that day,
and paid in advance with tears over the years,
as I wasn't always the son I should have been.
This was a visit which was not afforded
because something, something very asinine
on television kept me from her bedside
on that final morning of her precious life.

The news came in a sympathetic phone call.
"Sorry Mr. Gossett, but your mother has died."
I continued staring deeply, analytically at
something, something on the television
that morning, wondering if this was really how her life
should have ended, so alone, with dead eyes staring
to the side, still hoping to see the son who was
too engrossed to be there. I'm sorry, mother,
one last time I have to tell your how sorry I am.

--