backyard crowing
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for jimmy
four years ago i was sixteen, and meeting my cousin jimmy. i thought that he, at age fourteen, was about the most brilliant, kind, funny, boy i had ever met. i was in love with him, he was my first love.
he goes to A&M now, or did for part of a semester before he dropped out to smoke weed, abandoning an $80K scholarship. he's now back in oklahoma, where he's from, and engaged. i hope he's okay.
here's my poem for him:
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for jimmy
one summer day
i was sixteen
we walked the pond as
sun fell down
four years pass
school sweeps in
herald the future
welcome the dawn
four years ago
we walked the pond
my cousin--sweet-brilliant,
most full of life
swiftly now taking a wife
closes his books
lights a joint
jimmy, why?
what's the point?
'fate' is for cowards
look up at the sky
into yourself
into my eyes
you have more to offer
if only you try
than anyone else
i've seen in my life
put down the habit
we beg of you, please,
from straightaway glance
to bended knees
remember us
your family
remember the J, remember the D
in your name and his
forever you see
ties in a past
but future can be
anything else
make your own
legacy
this is your life
so do what you please
but pleasure's not pleasing
when beauty means bleed
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on a sidenote, my mother called her former father-in-law a clusterfuck. this is how she can be so wrong and so right, simultaneously. this is how she is human, and inhumane.
- wednesday, Jan. 17, 2007
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