NIGHT GENTLE

Stood in the doorway,
framed in dim
lighting,
the night, gentle
with
Lester Young
blowing like a
stoned
hummingbird,
she stood, crying,
quietly,
not in sadness,
she stood in the
doorway
and I wished that
I was a painter
or
composer,
she looked up,
at me,
her face wet with
our kind of love,
slowly, I moved
forward,
kissed her tears
and darkness
fell asleep.

 

SUNSET

Like she was injured,
she lay draped
over the stark sprawling
concrete landscapes
and the debris
of love,
strewn like
abandoned planets
or the memory
of slaves,
she lay exhausted,
spent,
her breath
darkening
the skies.

 

JOANNA, A POEM FOR YOU

It wasn’t the
ravages of time
or
the drugs and
alcohol
or
the harshness
of
homelessness
and
loneliness
or
the absence
of affection
or
the violence
of crazed
strangers
that killed
her,
no,
it was
life
that
took
her.