darling s, if you are reading this,
it is because i am already dead.
really dead. not just dead
like the little thatch of fire
between your thighs, no –
dead, as in i was more alive
that that little smoky nook
could ever fathom.
darling s, still lovely s
i am deader than a bridge
across a sullen southern river
that neither you nor i would cross
in the deadness of the night
and yet i lived, i am sure i lived as both bridge
and as the river, one world to the other,
and o! i rolled and flowed.
darling s, sweet song of s
i am deader than an actor
some scooped out, hollowed grifter
lying for a living, living for the brilliance
of my own bejeweled lies. and yet,
i lived as the best lies live, as a
song you wanted sung to you
by a sweet, persuasive tongue.
darling s, my apple blossom
i am deader than a pontiac, anchorfaced
and open topped, a howler from ypsilanti,
the soul of michigan in my rust.
rust mixed with red dust,
like the guts of some far fetched juju
summoning you as my pomba gira
and in that sweet, lowdown calling, i did live.
darling s, if you are reading this, i’m
dead and frankly, disappointed.
i put your business up in the street,
and that made for damn fine poems
i drove that rainy johnny mercer
from your lighthouse to your whorehouse
to your thunderbird motel, all up
your rumble tumble heart.
darling s, what was it killed me?
hell, i’m dead, i can’t remember!
i suspect it might have been a chronic
lack of seeing you naked. or, perhaps this
limbly decay into desuetude and rot
came not in muscle, but in knowledge
that the women you wasn’t was in fact
never the woman you were.
tarnation and eudemonia 
Fantastic. No other description necessary. Hello Seb.
thatch of fire, little smoky nook, your lighthouse, your whorehouse – I bet that stuff got some damn fine poems, indeed…
Missed you, a lot. Missed this kind of good, good shit too.
At your courtly best.
You’re doing okay for a dead guy. Good ot hear from you again and damn, if this isn’t a right and fine thing.
O, Seb……..the things you do with a pen should be outlawed………… 🙂 Love this and you. ~ Bobbie
It breathes, it lives! Then it dies.
Speechless…and that’s the best thing to be after reading something so raw and powerful…
Well, this is a welcome ray of sunshine on a cold, cloudy Friday afternoon, a day I dressed for show, because it is casual Friday, never minding the temps are in the twenties, which is borderline arctic, here in Tennessee, and while this all cotton, camo ensemble looks damn fetching, if I do say do myself, chances are, it would be the death of me if my car broke down on the drive home this evening…
Damn… I think you got inside my head… Not bad for a dead guy.
And here’s the sad thing:
“that the women you wasn’t was in fact
never the woman you were.”
womEn you wasn’t was in fact never the womAn you were.
How many different women does someone have to be to please you?
Excellent poem and a very logn time coming, might I add.
Sometimes, it isn’t the sexy words, it is the nakedness of their honesty that sets the thatch afire.
Y’all got SOUL, muthafuckah!
got.damn.it, Seb! the 2nd stanza especially speaks to me, stunning.
Hey Stacy – the specific bridge in question is the Talmadge Memorial. But I figure you’d have figured that out 🙂
this is superb! a chronic lack of seeing someone naked is one of the best cause of death i have ever heard of, haha. well done!
I love the second and the last verses. This ‘dead’ is great, rhyme-ful dead… hope we get to see more of tthis dead Seb this year.
It was a lovely surprise to see your blogpost in my inbox after a long time. 🙂
Such a frank and sad goodbye note. There’s a little bitter sting in the end too, you nasty man.