TO A DESCENDANT READING MY POEMS

Looking for me?

I posed for posterity.

I used words to cover my tracks.

Did my sincerity

sufficiently conceal my truth?

Can you deduce what I was then

from idiosyncratic verses

and a few ambiguous titles?

Can you deduce what I am now

from what you have deduced from then?

Is that too much like sifting ancient light

to find a long-gone distant star?

Then, I was X (I marked my spot)

modified by youth and age and vanity

and love and suffering and indifference.

Now, I am X modified by my purposes,

as you are Y trapped in your own contexts.

Where X equals Pure Me,

and Y equals Pure You,

there is nothing stands between us,

only time.

Finding The Join

If
You can't,
You won't.

But if
you are curious
about what happens
between
twenty-three-sixty
and
treble-oh-oh,

or
what goes into
the crack separating
the last of May
from
the first of June,

then
you are in for
a lifetime of
sideroads and
alleyways
and strange people
and stranger
experiences and

finally,
perhaps after you die,
it will all
become clear and

you
will
understand.

Are You Listening?

Paying attention
one to another
lights us up
blows the breath of life
up our noses.

Being dead
doesn't mean
we've gone away.
It merely means
we're paying attention
to something else.

Forgiveness

A curtain corner raised,
I witnessed Jews,
enlightened since their passage
through the Auschwitz ovens,
rescuing former camp guards
from the stinking pits
remorse had dug for them.

I bring it to your attention
you bombers, you famine makers,
you adjusters of populations.
These children you kill
might learn, by this light,
a love which, brought to bear,
could drive you screaming mad.

A Confusion of Dead Friends

Since it is Samhain - and our friends are closer than usual

All my friends are dead.
No, no that's badly put.
I don't mean all my friends
are dead, I mean
I don't mean all the friends
I had are dead,
have died, I mean,
I mean my friends
are dead, were dead
before they were
my friends.

I'm sorry to confuse you,
but they'll know
what I mean,
I think.

The Magic Door

Step lightly through the magic door to friends,
Nor yet regret the room you are to leave.
Dream more of new beginnings than of ends.

Though going, and your imprint's loss offends,
And you ever reluctant to bereave,
Step lightly through the magic door to friends.

And if the blanket of the past descends,
Seduces you to sorrow and to grieve,
Dream more of new beginnings than of ends.

Those old men cashing wisdom's dividends,
Recalling what a foreguard can achieve,
Step lightly through the magic door to friends.

And, seeing with perception that transcends
The images myopic eyes perceive,
Dream more of new beginnings than of ends.

Consider then, as your last pace impends,
The greetings you are likely to receive.
Step lightly through the magic door to friends,
Dream more of new beginnings than of ends.

A Confusion of Dead Friends

All my friends are dead.
No, no that's badly put.
I don't mean all my friends
are dead, I mean
I don't mean all the friends
I had are dead,
have died, I mean,
I mean my friends
are dead, were dead
before they were
my friends.

I'm sorry to confuse you,
but they'll know
what I mean,
I think.

The Magic Door

Step lightly through the magic door to friends,
Nor yet regret the room you are to leave.
Dream more of new beginnings than of ends.

Though going, and your imprint's loss offends,
And you ever reluctant to bereave,
Step lightly through the magic door to friends.

And if the blanket of the past descends,
Seduces you to sorrow and to grieve,
Dream more of new beginnings than of ends.

Those old men cashing wisdom's dividends,
Recalling what a foreguard can achieve,
Step lightly through the magic door to friends.

And, seeing with perception that transcends
The images myopic eyes perceive,
Dream more of new beginnings than of ends.

Consider then, as your last pace impends,
The greetings you are likely to receive.
Step lightly through the magic door to friends,
Dream more of new beginnings than of ends.

Final Communication

I swore that
when I died
I'd move the halls
of heaven and hell
to struggle back
and tell my loved ones
how I'd fared.

I hadn't bargained
on being changed
so much by freedom
especially
freedom from
the self.

If I went back,
who would I say
I was?

Forgiveness

A curtain corner raised,
I witnessed Jews,
enlightened since their passage
through the Auschwitz ovens,
rescuing former camp guards
from the stinking pits
remorse had dug for them.

I bring it to your attention
you bombers, you famine makers,
you adjusters of populations.
These children you kill
might learn, by this light,
a love which, brought to bear,
could drive you screaming mad.