It’s raining and there’s no sky.
It’s snowing without crystal.
There’s a river without an eye.
There’s a place without stigma.

There are bodies without organs.
There are dogs without sight.
There’s a path through a woodlot
But it’s overgrown with rot.

There are conditions without hope
And wars without appeasement.
There’s a place without race
And of the pain we inflict, not a trace.

There are feelings without feeling
And living without being.
There are memories without shape
And shadows that escape.

It’s snowing and there’s no sky.
It’s raining into an open eye.
There’s a place without stigma.
There’s a river turned to crystal.

We were looking at an old art deco building
In the city of our youth
Both of us stoned on some excellent reefer
When my friend said “that building is holy”
Soon as he said it it happened
I saw the Metropolitan Building
Floating above its own foundation
Backlit by the summer moon
Glowing with nimbus light
And for a few moments it was holy
It was everything we’d ever loved
The years of our poetic friendship
Our city its streets its river of time
They all belonged to us
Without a police cruiser in sight

Every December I reread Kenneth Patchen
His poems are like Christmas lights
On impoverished streets
I remember buying a signed edition
In a Las Vegas bookshop
I think it should have cost more
But so should roses and sunsets
My heart goes out to Kenneth Patchen
His broken back and silent anguish
His poems mused me into meditation
Fused me into the flowering of forever
How many of his poems
Were like gifts we opened at Christmas
When as children we could receive
Why is it every time I read Patchen
I’m awash in grief and gratitude
It’s like the resurrection of something
Comfort has lost in us an avowal
About our duality and ambivalence
How we love and hate
How we end our wars with tears of joy