What Jeff Buckley and my 3-year-old nephew have to say

"Looking out the door I see the rain fall upon the funeral mourners.
Parading in a wake of sad relations as their shoes fill up with water. Maybe I'm too young to keep good love from going wrong. But tonight you're on my mind so, you'll never know.

Every inch of me is filled with pain, oh you should've come over.
Too young to hold on and too old to break free and run.
Burning in the corner is the only one who wants you with him.
My body turns and yearns for sleep that will never come.
My kingdom for a kiss upon her shoulder.
It's never over.
It's never over.
all my blood for the memories and the sweetness of her laughter.
It's never over.
Maybe I'm too young to keep good love from going wrong.
I feel too young to hold on.
I'm much too old to break free and run.
Too deaf, dumb, and blind to see the damage I've done.
Sweet lover, you should've come over.


My broken bones can smell the rain and they're aching to recover.
And the rain I want to come down fast like kisses on my skin.
But it passed me by and it left me dry.
Lover, you should've come over.


Broken down and hungry for your love with no way to feed it.
Where are you tonight child, you know how much I need you.

Well I wait and I burn.

Will I ever see your return?

Lover, you should've come over.

Lonely is the room, the bed is made, the open window lets the rain in.
It's never over.
All my riches for her smiles when I slept so soft against her.
She's the tear that hangs inside my soul forever.

Lover, you should've come over.


Well I wait, I burn.
Will I ever see your return?

Lover, you should've come over."

---


My ten-year-old niece asked me what my tattoo says and my 3-year-old nephew ran his little index finger along it saying, "It says, 'I, love, you.' "

And I told him he was right, of course.


---


Today the sky is blue metallic gray and there is a constant wind that is deathly blowing. I wish it would take me. It was like the ocean that day that the ocean was my lover for a moment and if it killed me, as love has, then it would have been proper. Being forever frozen doesn't seem so bad. Numb cold.


---


I flew over the grand canyon at sunset. My mind recalled the old legend that the giant Paul Bunyan had dragged his ax behind him across the land to form that place. And I thought of all the giants that have stood, on this land and all lands, both figurative and literal, that have dragged their giant axes across space and across time and split the souls of men, trekked the hearts of the willing, carved us all into what we are. I was grateful and desirous of being a giant. I wrote a nonsense poem as I stared out the window and James Joyce cut into my brain and my heart. 


Think Again's Wake


Gentle gentle and super-
mental I lie down to heart
my sentel uh gram
of coke puffff of smoke cancee a joke
to toke or night to toke. Croke.


---

I recall that one of the saints, perhaps Peter or Paul, told in a letter of his longing for death to be brought back to God rather than continue to toil on earth, but he was accepting of his lot.