Reading by the light of a burn
I'm smoking words

magnetic kettles brew anhydrous storms
at four in the morning.

Being alive and living are two very different things.

There is a deep, rich silence and the bedsheets are as soft as oil.
“What do you think happens when you die?” I ask. “From a purely scientific perspective. Is there any way…?”
Dee rolls his shoulders onto my hands.
“No, Art. I told you. There’s just nothing.”
“But I can’t imagine ‘nothing’.”
“Of course you can. Before you were born – what was there?”
“There was the promise of me.”
“No. There was the risk of you.”
We both laugh.
“There must be something.” I say. “There must be.”
“I hope there’s nothing.” Dee says. “ I can’t think of anything worse than an afterlife. I want peace and quiet. A lifetime is enough. Being alive is such a strange predicament. Knowing everything and knowing nothing.”
I can feel his heart against me. I can feel his heart and smell his skin. I feel us, as we are rocked by the world and breathing together.
And outside is the garden, the wisteria, the white chair, the promise (and the risk) of something, anything, everything, nothing.

Here’s a breathing rose
Partnered with a prose
Not to entertain
Or grow old
In thy memory box.
But rather;
Here’s a breathing rose
Partnered with a prose
And a master piece
To entertain
Thy scarlet heart
That maybe it will replace
Thy blood cells
And grow old
Breathing significance into
Thy memory box
Here’s a breathing rose
A breath that shall soon be no longer
But here is a master piece
That shall forever breathe with the rhythm of thy heart
Assigned to remind you
Of this night
In hope that it will be
The pioneer of the warm tears
That shall run down thy cheeks
And it be known as:
Euphoria.

Imagination
Is all that is required
To write a haiku.

“Your laugh
Is the second best
Sound I've ever heard.”
“What's the first?”
“Hearing you say
You love me, too.”