death and my feet still on the carpet.

1.

Two weeks late the phone rings and I think I hear

tears or mine just start to fill that spot in sound

where you know there should be sound but something involved just cannot hold their end

of the bargin that is grief

and news

and condolences

and a map to someplace where it makes sense.

I fall back on the shit couch made to a bed and let me feet hang from the end and they didn't quite touch.

2.

Me.

Bill.

Smirnoff.

Tonic.

This is what you drank.

This is what you had me make you.

When I couldn't have a voice.

When I couldn't have a space.

When I had to wrap my own presents.

Those fucking overalls never fit and it wasn't your fault and that was how it had to be.

That wasn't your fault.

This wasn't your fault.

But I sat there with my best friend and toasted and drank to a man fifteen years gone.

I let my feet hang from the end of the barstool and they didn't quite touch.

3.

Random bathroom before a set of songs I felt I had to rip my skin open to get out, I'm pissing and breaking pills in half for time and chasing with beer and I get in front of a mic and sing about how all of this won't ever fucking work and you smile from wherever you are. You always smiled from that chair that you needed help out of and you fell from and yelled and screamed and cried and lost something that you could never get back. I could map that room. All I wanted was that fireplace to burn. Something. It never happened. I walked out on the deck and looked into yards of families that were what television said families were and I hated them and now I know my family was it. My family was life. Me wedged in one of those chairs, feet hanging from the edge, not quite touching.

4.

Fuck

your

middle

name

if all you ever need is

pussy

pills

and booze.

5.

You were the ultimate Booth.

Your son and grandson rolled into some sort of superhuman with shaky steps and strong opinions.

I admire your taste

I admire your swing

I admire your contentment.

But that was after the clubs, the cigarettes, the pussy, the booze, the service, the wives, the crazy secret foreign country marriages, the surveys, the second (first) family, the lies, the damage and then finally the three times I saw you a year.

What I really admire was the way you pointed, while holding your vodka drink, at whatever was wrong.

You always meant those points.

And I always mean to keep my feet where they reach.