A Goodbye to Alex

Alex,
I knew you for 20 years. You were my friend. I saw you laugh.
And cry. And cower with me in our bunker of unlevened youth,
Staring at the stars.

How far they seem tonight....

Where did you go?
Not on your last day. I don’t mean that.
I don’t wish to soil my future with details of a life unrightly ended;
I just want to know: why didn’t you talk to me?
How did it get so bad that you couldn’t call?

We shared the times and troubles, the itchy summer afternoons of firstyear 83,
Frenetic with so much promise,
(But pregnant with none)....
The midnight car rallies,
to a high and windy place,
where we could hear the freeway and feel the starlight on our faces.

So many miles, so many beers
So little time.......

Where are you?
Is it warm there?

Your friends have all stood stunned and silent watch,
over the great hole that has opened under all of us,
Scratching and groping to understand what you did,
Much less what you did to them.

One night, while I was a scientist, I asked you what is the extent of the universe.
You said that it goes on forever, that’s why there’s room for all of us....

In such a small garden I dance
That the flowers are so close I can smell them....
Much perchance to expire before I should do so again.....

Time is short.
That much you have given me.

Any moment can be your last.
Any breath the best it gets.
But no adversity can stop the onward rush
Of time and circumstance,
And the chance to put it right...

WHY COULDN’T YOU HEAR ME????

We went through the same things,
Knew the same girls,
Or at least I talked to their friends, while you charmed the both of them.
Every time it went that way...,
Much to my agog,...teenage lust has governance
Far beyond my will.

But still you were unfinished.
....in the room the women come and go,
talking of Michangelo.

That was not enough.
Where easily would I in the early days,
Have gathered the lucky embrace of the friend,
Of your good fortunes bride,
So later did it seem,
That I were rich by my longtime faithful partner,
And you the poorer for so short a chance,
To see your loved ones virtues....

In that darkness later did you walk,
But never without my open door.
Or my timeworn shoulder,
That you scoured with tears of bygone youth
And unrequieted love.

Our times, our tides
Determine us,
By will good fortune goes,
The dice of fate with all of us
Will one day make its foe.

So how to meet your end?
We all can see the same walls
Your gifted vision decried to us,
No cheaper revealed than by our dutiful toil,
With minds blissfully elsewhere.

You were so much smarter than me,
Why didn’t you get that?

A machine it is. It must be.
To deal fairly with us all, and to keep going
From one generation to the next
It must be no less, and no more
Than just a machine.

If you can learn to ride it you can feel the wind in your hair.
From the shoulders of giants a great many things can be seen......

We used to watch the stars together.
Drive to a place far enough away,
That the stray light wouldn’t blur
The star you were looking at

Are you far enough away now?
Can you see what you are looking at?

I hope your eyes arent foggy,
Or it isnt lonely
Way out there
‘Cos I cant come to hear your pain
And try to make it right.

I’ve lost you.
I mourn you.
I will always think of some small part of you
sleeping under the stars.

Goodbye my friend.           –Johnno.