bones

Dad,

mother found an empty bottle of Royal Canadian

under the seat cushion of the brown chair

in the room she has refused to enter

20 years after your passing.

Suspecting

that you are like the corn in September

and the psyllid

and the cutworm have already

torn into you. You

use to call out "dead man"

then smile as if we kid's

knew well

that empty meant that the man

inside

was gone on from the burning hallways.

Or was drug from the teetering cliffs,

or that Coltrane was there with you

in that abstract hell place

where

old horn players and people

who drank so much in dark spaces

but hid their secrets in the tonality

of the blues or

in those many sequences with James Garrison

making ugly faces, in that darkened tower

where below the damsel is left

to howl alone.

This just came to me, so I thought

I would mention it, that mother is old now and

has forgotten how to cook. But s**t

like this makes

her recall you.

Reviews

[Coyote Poetry]

This is so good. Feel of the city and real life. You make me see poor mother and the finding of the Royal Canadian club whiskey. Little things bring back the days of old. I enjoyed this poem my friend.
Coyote

[h d e rushin]

thank you dearest Coyote.......and good Autumn to you my friend....dana

[Coyote Poetry]

Happy Autumn to you and you are welcome.

[W.k.kortas]

I'm a big fan of the epistolary, especially when it is mixed with valediction and departed fathers. In the hands of a lesser writer, this could have gone all weepy and hand-wringing. You are not, however, a lesser writer.

[h d e rushin]

thank you my dearest wk.....and good Autumn to you my friend....dana

[jacob erin-cilberto]

in drink, he has forgotten himself---but in old age, she remembers what he became...forgets what he was...
and rapunzel is still up there, with her flowing hair, and no knight to rescue her from her memories of him...
j.

[h d e rushin]

thank you Jacob....dana