I. On First Meeting at Mayfest

Would you spin me a river
of that smile?
And in these mountains in my head
I will sit on the bank
and dream
or think too much
about the riverbed;
Maybe the cool water can thaw
this ice age
and that blank page
and maybe even more,
and when I stop thinking
I am on the bank of that river
and my feet are on the oceanshore.

II. On Meeting Again, for Dinner

Would you spin me a river
through the mountains,
or a smile?
And I’ll grasp the current
like the banks of the Chauga
pushed and pulled a mile
or so;
Or maybe pave for me a dirt road
through trees flossed with kudzu,
and I’ll ride the trail like the rain
falling all around you
and your feet
whispering across the earthen heartbeat
as I drown in your eyes
and remember Mayfest
and am lost when I turnand see the waitress.

~jericho~
Grief Prescription

Food threatened to buy the place
with cash or flowers.
Grief cooks. Grief eats.
I stare across the table and see the daughter
and her misplaced smile flow through the crowd
so remotely loud
that no one there could hear the cries of crowded isolation
and long-dead inspiration pouring from those eyes
as she watched her father grab his keys.
Headlights weeping through darkness until they shine
on headstones rising like bright flowers in the fog,

a new home, as from the house she is long gone
with flowers.
Mom’s clinical study for the cure for life,
a prescription of placebos in the grand scheme,
so in the grand style
too many questions were left unanswered – no goodbyes.
Not even daddy waved or cried as he kissed the trees
while the food got cold.
Narcotics include drugs derived from parts of plants
and flowers.
~jericho~