JOHN RAYMOND
REFLECTIONS ON NOTHING
I had never known you
years will pass and
I will never know you and
in that time you
could have known me
we
could have loved
bought vegetables
broken promises
grown older
and grown apart
the pain of our parting
would have seized me
at first rendered me
drunken mad and blind
for months or for a year
until such time when your
memory will have left me entirely
left me alone
as I had begun
no record of you
in any pages
no photograph or sign
no old notes or
letters addressed to __
new things would come
as if
I had never known you
APOLOGY
The man on the bus
and there is nothing
not even sound
whiskey begot whiskey
a scorpion down
the barrel of a twelve gauge
one cloud became two
slowly as if dancing
everything else was blue
her pain
and the empty
I embattle those
that I’d birthed
in her like sick
ventriloquy
a lullaby for the wounded
arrested spirit glowing
like a firefly in the glass jar
I have only two crumpled dollars
and one gimpy heart
for she
with rockets
with old glasses
without heaven