pumpkin seeds

i woke up lifetimes ago at dawn to write this
but it took me until now to sit my body down at the clavier
to strike chords and post boards
above the glare of the canal's edge
you were a whisper of grass
you were a hollering wind in a gorge

we gorged ourselves on pumpkin seeds - ripe and fat and blind
each lilting phrase poured out from behind the veil of my youth
and in those days we just stood our cigarettes on their ends,
and let them burn to the ground

I asked you for your autograph, and you wrote, in your distinct hand
'spiritual bypass'
I'm hung over from eating english breakfast, sipping tea with torries, and collecting foxgloves

I wish you well and wish you well and wish you well,
but the crowded platform of this train leaving,
of these words printed,
ink spilling
is noisy

i printed you a pug in our final hours,
as if to say, 'i cannot breathe' --
and printed you a wand,
as if to say 'for better or worse, a witch' --
i printed you a crown, but threw it in the pond,
down the way, in my little corner of purgatory,
where I whiled one thick slice of my lifetime away

i woke up at dawn, many lifetimes ago, to write this
full of gratitude, and quiet surrender to the pale orange light
streaming in over the grey tiles, and the black dog