a dream about a man much like another man once known to me

                  outside the realm of dreams

    I happened upon a man,

a tall skinny-looking fellow wearing

a time-worn trench-coat, wandering

the vacant streets after a fierce downpour.

I tried to mind my business, but

he looked at me mumbling

something indiscernible, but sounding

somewhat like lines from Shakespeare.

I asked: “are you talking to me?"

(although without the menacing inflection of Travis Bickle.)

I was curious, but he moved on,

mumbling: “beware the ides.."

(non-discernible) ..beware..” as he walked

toward a rain-glistened diner across the street, which

was sitting upon a burning hydrangea bush, where

he was abruptly struck by a commercial jetliner

landing on a runway at an airport I seemed to be

somewhat familiar with. –– there, the dream ended.

this happened on the last night of a three night stand

at the home of Tom and Marley Joyce

in Saint Louis, Missouri. –– the year was: 1971.

It was cold in Saint Louis.

James Phelan, a man once known to me,

much like the man in the dream, died restlessly

in his hospice bed at his mother's house

in Fall River, Massachusetts on March of 1971.

writ in 2022