Six Notebooks

After the Gold Rush
 
Drinking coffee
                Early morning
                                Saint Paul Minnesota
Thinking about what a friend had said
 
Early morning
                Before dawn
Fresh coffee      
                French press
 
With a gifted journal
                A fountain pen
 
Not so much trying to make sense
As trying to make sense
Of something last night heard
Unsettling enough that
 
I called a friend
                Before dawn
                                As I drank coffee
Saint Paul Minnesota
 
Not that he could make sense
                Or even tried
 
He said
                So how does that affect
                The skin Paul lives in today
 
He said
                Write, just write
                Maybe the answer is in the words
                Or at least something
                That the skin of Paul can live in today
 
Early morning
                Saint Paul
                                Minnesota
                A gifted journal
                French pressed coffee
                                Fountain pen
 
Before sunrise
                Thinking about what a friend had said
                                Knowing it wasn’t a lie
PWS 2021.12.31