Perched on the rooftop
like birds on a telephone wire.
The smoke fills our lungs
and escapes, dancing in the wind.
The moments we've shared
won't ever die in my mind.
They'll stay there on endless repeat,
where we'll stay young forever.
Wherever life takes us, no matter where,
We'll always be there.
My friends will never die.

Blotched botched
word failures spewing forth
from defective machinery
subtracted from
popularity conquests
showing youngbloods
how to write up
this tragedy thing right
Mouthless voiceless
shapeless formless
avoidance and mockery
creeping like carbon monoxide admissions scrawled out
in digitized assault
and crying out
What kind of democracy is this?
What kind of freedom is this?
When torn from those clutched
analytical political land mines
I have to ask  
Before revolutionary words are mistaken and reduced
to stripped inspirational drivel
adorning office drone strike stationery
What makes you think
your
words can hurt someone
who wants to ******
themself
daily?

The first night we met
You showed me your guitar collection
- an impressive one -
And we played Get Together by The Youngbloods
-You on a gorgeous 12-string electric,
And me on some other guitar, I don’t remember-
for my parents and their friends and your wife Robin. Singing in harmony.
You were much better at guitar than me.

You offered me *** that night,
And I said no thanks
Not trying to be a *****.
I knew that your hips and back caused you pain and that Vicodin and red wine were a part of your diet.
But you got high anyway
And we talked about guitars.

When you came to see me play
You sang from the audience.
“A Little Help From My Friends,” I think, and
when I sang Hallelujah at the end of the night you cried, saying it was the most beautiful thing you’d every heard.
The next day, at The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, you wandered through the exhibits in reverent awe,
A cane lighting your way like a candle.

I know it hurt to walk that much
But you were determined to see all of it;
I left.
Having seen it before.
“I was on the HBO special in 2020” I told you, puffed like a rooster.
And you said that you would watch;
That I have what it takes.

“He was a big fan of yours,”
My father likes to say, like I don’t know.
A person always knows.
Your reworked Gibson a fresh addition to my own growing collection; who could pass up an SG?
Sold for nothing and only because I liked it that first night.

And now you’re gone and your wife is undone and I am so angry with you.
I wonder, would you have listened to me?
Had I reasoned with you about your health problems
The increased risk
The pros and cons?

And maybe it was your time
But maybe if you had fortified yourself against the devil you knew
By taking on the devil you didn’t
We would have had time
For one last duet.

I heard there was a secret chord that David played and it pleased the lord, but you don’t really care for music do you? It goes like this: the fourth, the fifth, the minor fall, the major lift, the baffled king composing hallelujah.

Hallelujah.
Hallelujah.
Hallelujah.
Hallelujah.