For Pedro

Poison ivy mind, I'll bleed
best intentions in your direction
and maybe you'll recover --
I dream that you'll recover,
sweating illness out clogged pores,
streaked in the black ink of your deception:
I know your secrets.

Bald mind bears sweet fruits
but yours is a dense forest --
erudite and dead,
that's how they'll remember you.

When the watchtower bangs down from on high
and the news is tolled out across the land,
we will gather by and by
to feel the brush of your passing:
hands stroke friendship as they shimmer past,
drifting relentlessly towards that end you sought:
muttering retreats as they fade from vision,
slipping toward the gates of beyond --

And from that place I pray that you will turn,
look back upon us in some form of wonder
and laugh like you did when sitting
at those tables made of green,
sipping coffee and burning cigarettes
while your dawn was skating restlessly
towards this damp night.