Ode

remember your old friends

and the cost of them

how they looked       (& you)

those goofs —blabbing their mumbo gumbo savior rules

all that seemed so important in your life

Fading like Hades on a carnival ride

that's what makes us too young for this old age

rather be sipping somethin' cool

slip into something more comfortable

checking to see if the world's still spinning

lazy

watching those

fashion suicides

trying to drink themselves immortal

pale pretty night, an-other poet

charging drinks with his mom's

American Express, singing sad songs

about the working poor

—his girlfriend looks up from her Vanity Faire

your portrait has thawed into liquid blue

the way Van Gogh might have painted you

torn shadow & a broken reflection

I'm nearly free of the old blues progression

that holy trinity

the rest plus R&R;  I don't care —I got what I wanted

the extra I hadn't bargained for

well there's cheaper and more cheerful ways then

Living like Elvis -taking no tax deductions

all that seemed so important in your life

Fading like Hades on a carnival ride

that's what makes us too young for this old age