Was it really you,
   checking me out,
    Danger man   
 in your stunning suit (?)
  looking out of place
    fully at home
     on Church Street
  that night with the full moon
    smiling, I could see you
    studying me
 you looked at ease, at work
     a fashion beast
 looking for release from your cage
     of concerns 
   and self-censorship
  your charming lisp that sometimes leaks through

  Not knowing who you are I thought
 Oh, don't judge that young dapper guy
     for thinking he needs to dress up to give it a try
 he must
   work in many media
 write stories, read the news, paint songs about wind
    comment on things for a fee, 
     for free, 
    whatever it be

  I was digging you digging me
   taking a picture of the fiberglass cow.
 

 Danger Man are you really Danger Angel now?
  I'm still not convinced that 
      you climbed on board that ferry.
   Somehow I picture you in tie dies dancing
       to Jerry.
    but that is just me and I say it because it
         rhymes.

  Make no lists
    of enemies
   only friends.
  Take no boat ride
    on the frozen fens
  And just if you think to lay down in clover
  hope the barge isn't flipping over.

  Off in the midnight town,
      (there are parts of it that pretend to be a city)
 there are glimmers of the jonesing frown
   shimmers on the water
       a clown
 with his smile painted on
   Is it joy or sadness coming through?
   why does he remind me of you?

     or is that another night?
      you glich out
     like old TV would, a scene from episode IV.
   they look for you
      they turn around
   at North Avenue,
     on South Champlain Street,
    over by the Batteries in the park
   that used to over look the railroad yard
  but traded in for subsidized
      condo housing and grand views of the lake
   that some covet, (another form of envy?)
      you are not captured.

  I devolve into thoughts on sinful self
    I can't hold the thoughts of you long enough
   never having met you you
        fade I think
   of Anthony
      holding a giant fish I'd
  die for him too he's the same age as you
     with his shy smile he's a guy
  you go out into a gale to get 
    but he'd never put himself there he'd
     be back at the dock before the storm as you should me.
  And can't you see him there holding his baby?
      Some say take the baby far from the storming shore.
  See him holding a giant fish, nothing more.
     Look for him on a website at night at home
  trying to find a happy shore to roam.
        I suddenly think of you
      and not of him and
    wonder if you knew him 
    his name is 'Jim'.

    See, now, the poet has changed the name of the man
      in the photo
  holding the throphy fish not harvasted
    released.

 some say death is like a release we were caught here
      and now we swim off towards deep waters, 
          the sand bar distracts us 
   the view
         of the shimmering lake
     the light
            from the camp kitchens people doing dishes
    watching the lake
        from their coveted view a
      sailboat off in the far away
   a million reasons for having
      nothing left to say you
       being such a big-mouth like you were is it
           really you? you
    fade . . . 
        I think of Anthony 
         and that giant fish
        that he released
          back into . . .
              (waterway kept private)

 If anyone were fishing
     for someone big
     to catch
    and make take account
 They'd have hoped to catch a guy like you
   and if they were guy's guy guys, like
    Anthony (cause you can just see what
     a humble happy guy he is gov job
        at the big lake has to be sequestered)
    They just put him back into his estuary, his channel
          the place he gets the flow
       from where he takes his life, 
           where the turtles go.

     Anthony'd be fishing
         he'd be your best friend now
      when you catch the big sturgeon
          you weigh him, measure him
     and release him.

  Let's hope for this for everyone.
 

In the AIDS Grove at Golden Gate Park. The day of the Bay To Breakers, May, 2011

    Praise the Lord!

What was your note going to be
  stuff inside a book like it was
    now that you are gone
    and no one reads books anymore
       your age
    gets you a special place
      in the cemetary
       they birds have no where to make their nests
 except high in the trees.
     you'd like to see them there
    walking through
   the cast of shadows
       the plot of constant revelation
     no time to rest
   too much time to die.

    What were your statues supposed to represent?
 Christmas came, I didn't see them they meant nothing
     it was you, flesh and blood, we loved to see we
        love you.

  Did you feel you'd failed because no one seemed to 
          care about Angels?
    You knew they were real?
     you heard their fluttering promises?
   Does saying one believes really mean one does?
  Or does doubt express itself waiting for someone, some voice
           to call you home?
    Just where was that?

     All those tapes and recordings of you
        were sucked off to the clouds to save the world
    from clutter of plastic and silicon and too many DVD's
  in a box, in the trash, the deletion of old times.
        Most tapes will never get a listen, the
     band on that record is dead and buried.

   no one listens
     no one hears it
        no one care about the pictures 
           stuffed in a book
   or what stone walls looked like
      on a post card in 1966
           when faced with the loss, the
   oblivion of you, 
       a fresh forest.
     gentle midnight mist.
         Bumber crop
    you loving everyone
     being so generous
      
    Did your pain of separation ever get resolved?
       were all  of your longings fulfilled?
           did all of your problems dissolve?

   What does any life become when gone?
     the burying is not just at the graveyard.
    The thoughts of you can not be be covered over.
  your hand reaches out to me but I am not in horrer.
     you are no zombie
     but a force for good in the world.
    Put your image on a plastic votive card.
      sell it for a dollar at a shrine on a metal  rack.

 Some time in the far away future
     someone will throw this thing away, this icon, this image.
      
 You.
        
      you.
    dear
 you can never be thrown away.

 
     

I got nothing more