Derek Keck

Is the ash in trees, babies, flowers, and visions of Godbetter than the visions themselves? Then you think,none of this is tangible or concrete. So you have another cigaretteand think about the (not one) but many ghosts you keep tucked away,under sheets, under beds, in notes, within other ghosts.

Then you think, is this a better world, closer to theone before you knew of wars__arth wars? Before you found that canary in its cagelaying, barely heaving. And you took it outside and said, Go Free! Go free!But it died there, right in your hands_like all of life.Is the ash in trees, babies, flowers, and visions of Godbetter than the visions themselves? Then you think,none of this is tangible or concrete. So you have another cigaretteand think about the (not one) but many ghosts you keep tucked away,under sheets, under beds, in notes, within other ghosts.

I say, we live on, though I am wrong, this is what I say.In the past, present, future, we live on as if in one time.You can never stop the past from happening,and it has happened , and will continue to happen. This is the truth, I think I know, along withthe two other things I do know.I exist.I want to kiss you. And also this: each day, as we go,we will always be as young as we can be.

Life is for the living and the dead, she said in a smile,And flashed me a bit of pale thigh in the summer time

233Life is for the living and the dead, she said in a smile,And flashed me a bit of pale thigh in the summer time