Swain's Requiem:

forty-eight hours after Thanksgiving day.

inclement weather. cold outside and inside.

like to chill your bones.

5:20 AM and I’m "up"..
as my grandmother would say: "with the chickens".

out there, the same dog's barking at the same nothingness.

two cognacs late last night long after an early evening snack of sliced turkey

with mayo, leafy romaine, and thinly sliced vine tomato on Canadian White

then bed at 12:15 AM.  / sleep-aid necessary.

a place beyond the borders:

admission to the little "professional" art school which long ago sat inside
the belly of the "Whaling City" was need-blind long before the term
"need-blind" was a thing to be debated.

missive to a classmate / life after life drawing: 

do you recall the image: "nude on all fours" 

crawling across the newsprint beneath the snout of my heavy-
handed compressed charcoal stick?

Sigmund Ables criticized it as not having "even one clean line"––

nine years beyond a half-century in time and I remember that moment.

well, so long.