And casually let it go

(What use to you a breath of mine?)

While I, breath-less, like a greedy collector

Snared your luminous essence

And lovingly pinned it

To the dark velvet of my mind --

A dead memory of a living moment

In an empty field

Each early morning

Sits without stirring an old recliner

Upon which reclines an old man

Abandoned

To his wander-lust of thoughts

Unchecked by luggage

Or spacetime travel restrictions

With hollow eyes fixed on

Ca - llis - to

And the lids of his blind eyes

Slowly lift as if in astonishment

At the sun’s unexpected warmth

That slowly wipes the thoughts dry

And returns them

To the same old recliner

In the same old field

That is no longer empty

Callisto --

A distant celestial nymph,

An old flame cooled in Jupiter’s orbit.

Callisto --

The sweet tingling of her name

Still excites his palate

In the end you sleep alone

Notwithstanding who you sleep with

And see yourself alone

Notwithstanding who you’re seeing

In the end you lie alone,

In state, or in the gutter,

Not withstanding all the tears

That shared your bed

And the ones now standing

All around it.

A poem --

Vast silence broken up by words

The blankness of a page interrupted

By small black letters

Like primordial swirls of energy

That curve a vast and empty space

Around them

To give shape to their light

And in return give meaning

To the void’s own darkness.