You dazzled me (for CF)

You dazzled me

with all that golden light

coming out of you.

You were chameleon enough

to read from

what I wanted to see in you

and fake it.

I didn’t know the pain

you had behind it.

You would lay down

a path across forever

and casual it as spiritual.

It was all so bubbly,

fresh and full.

You fed me well

and I thought

I was taking from you

on the sly.

I was enjoying your presence

and it cost me nothing.

You left for me impressions

that I interpreted to mean

that we all had a chance

this lifetime at enlightenment.

God had a personality

and we were all a part of it

through you.

You had siddhis

that people who knew you

recognized you by.

Life was golden

when you wanted it

to be so.

I entertained

that you loved women

not that you were a womanizer.

You used to do

that voice thing on them

and I was amazed

and thought it was harmless.

You were always around

even in your immediate absence.

You would binge

and go crazy

and then crazier.

But eventually

you would find yourself

and rededicate yourself

apparently from within

and recover into full blossom

again and again.

The cycles got bigger

and the recoveries

got further apart.

But the initial image

was in place.

Now no one could really help you

with your pain.

We had all signed on

for the show.

Certainly there were

disappointments from you

for everyone involved

but everyone only had

a glance of you

to serve their needs.

Your feminine guile

and native slyness got you by.

Time limited the wounds

we all carried for knowing you.

There was still the possibility

of light from within,

however remote it would seem.

There was still the dream

of the possibility

of light from within.

I suppose there was a consensus

working against association

with your pain.

Not that you ever

directly laid it out there

or asked for real help

from a real need.

Alcohol became

the writing implement.

Denial is cleverest in the hands

of an artist of deeds.

We all ignored the scribbled notes

for years.

You seemed harmless

to everyone unto yourself.

Sure sponge a little,

mooch a little,

and exaggerate a little

sly dog on the move a little.

You were way more feminine

than most people knew you were

as your means.

Eventually you read people

around you well and sleazed.

It worked for you to go abroad.

Sure the stories would come back.

People were aghast.

Years passed.

Dreams lived on,

mostly storied away,

deep within the memories

of what they once knew.

The pain, your pain,

now full-festering

alcohol as the precursor

and tight pussy

for you to make the call.

To yell up your being

for a sorry soul to cry out,

for the cunning call

of a daring spiritual being

to cry out.

The act of crying out,

disguised as pseudo-pleasure.

Does power and self-forgiveness

ever console (?)

Did I learn from you,

that love received ever substitutes

for self love never achieved (?)

that sex in any way

provides truthful answers

when calculated towards a need (?)

that the use of power,

even falsely,

has to torment me to my soul?

Was it crazy wisdom to know

and know of you

and yet not have you to thank

for now?

Well you are supposedly gone

from here for now,

but I thank you if from afar.

You were bold enough to live

and die ugly.

You were daring enough

to risk all

for one karmic cause.

You played everyone equally.

You covered the full spectrum

of inspiration to degradation

as if it was your keyboard

and the music was sweet

very soul sweet

and very solemn and stillborn sad.

Your life is our life

as we still live it.

May we have you as prophet

to self nurture us in need.

True wisdom has no contradiction

in essence

but only in appearance

for appearance’s sake.

And we, the audience,

have been granted gifts

by knowing you

for us, our lives to learn.

Your spirit lights your path forward

and leaves for us

memories yet shadowed

until we have walked that way

ourselves . . .