I have seen the kindest men of my generation destroyed by fairy tale lies.

     I have seen salmon colored sunsets,

         laid naked on the frothy shores of the Lost Coast in Mexico.

     I have shared a bottle of wine with migrating geese on more than one continent.

     I have gone for a bike ride.

     On the streets of America, men and women have asked me for change.

     I have lied to them, said I had none.  And I have purchased cigarettes with those lies, and Gatorade, and bubble gum.

     I have run fantastic marathons.  My lungs have been on fire.  My jaw has been broken. 

     I have slept with women and I have peed on my friends.

     I have heard the joy of soft Joni Mitchell singing Blue, thinking, oh yes thinking, "My mother will one day die.  Whom then will wonder where I am today?"

     Bugs Bunny on Ice?  I have seen Bugs Bunny on Drugs!

     September, Great America...

     Fish Bowling in Tylers Pinto.  Wodden Eagle Roller Coaster.  Running past black turnstile employee who screams; "You need to purchase a ticket!"  The bird goes up.  My youth is perfect.  Brooklyn Turnstyle Hurdle, and I'm in for the journey.

     I have learned to purchase Insurance.

     Hospital bed.  Waking up to plastic appendage in my arm.  Semi-cirecle of pleaded curtains surrounding my bed like foggy halo's from Heaven fallen to Earth to catch me.  Stomach so pumped of drugs and food and wine that I feel no hunger or thirst, but a general all over pain.

     & I have felt love and left love and waited for love to call.

     I have cried my body dry waiting for love to call.

     I have seen these things and I have seen some who have seen more, and I have dreamed, and wondered, and made great billowing speeches to God,

     To be reborn a man, to this strange beautiful life.