stain

he was speaking vodka,

a language that I all-too-well 

understood

as I sat on the edge of his bed,

I handed him the joint 

that I had just finished, 

carefully rolling

he lit it and taking a small toke,

he became suddenly 

and uncharacteristically 

serious

“You do know that I’m not life, right?”

it must have been obvious that I had no clue

how to answer that

and so he continued…  

“When I was just a little boy, 

your grandpa (and mine) told me… he said, 

‘Son, you’ll pull time

before you hit twenty’

At nineteen, I did six months”

before he could say another word,

several drunk people filed into the room

and the party took over,

just as if the writer had carefully placed it 

into the script, for dramatic effect

about fifteen years later,

I stood in the yard 

with my father,

one morning

we burned a mattress

in the yard

a mattress with a peculiar red stain

on the top end of it,

right about where a man 

would lay his head down

to sleep

smoke climbed through the 

bare tree branches, 

coating the limbs,

blackening the sun,

giving twisted, 

new meaning 

to the wind

with each searing crackle,

each hot, little iron that launched out

from the flame,

the notion was solidified…

that you would not 

be with us again

that red stain has been 

forever removed,

taken off and away from 

the bad blend of cotton 

and synthetic fiber,

its ugly, lack of aesthetic, 

removed from the eye

we have instead, 

embroidered you, 

into the heart 

in gold-letter, 

on satin

a little redirection,

a simple trick of the firelight

and of the mind

a touch of pre-approved 

manipulation,

vocabulary and memory,

now twisted to suit ourselves

with semblances of sanity 

and yourself, in a new suit… 

one to bring you 

over the threshold of the 

next beginning,

in a dapper style

we have gathered many flowers

you were one,

and we gather more

still, we do so wish 

that you were not so still

we seem to be so much 

more careful now,

with our words

we never had to 

monitor our tongues, before… 

we counted on you,

to always say something deliciously profane,

hysterical, sublime… 

something far more terrible

than we would ever manage (or dare) 

to bring forth from our fearful mouths

you said it all for us,

being our favorite devil, 

you spared no words, 

knowing full well, that your time 

was short

now, it has fallen serious and sullen

and ash settles on us,

stealing the still-warm seat

of smiles

we do our best

to preserve the integrity

of your memory

with all your words, 

so clumsily wrong,

so horribly right

your faults fill volumes, 

all of these now consumed by fire 

and forgetfulness

we will not miss them

we are in fact, 

glad to be free of these,

free from the weight of your awful acuity

your condemnation of this world, 

was felt always, hot upon our necks, 

virtually indecipherable 

from the indiscriminate joy 

that your voice poured out

over our wanting brains

we will not miss the anarchy of your actions,

nor your allegiance to an autocratic indifference

but beneath the 

intolerable heavy,

knowing of nothing else to do… 

we dutifully lift up our eyes

to the coming days

where you 

are not

------

This is dedicated to the happy memories of Jevon Ward.

written by Magus (Kevin Trent Boswell)