I have come to see you again, old friend,
in your purpose-built studio apartment –
everything wheelchair accessible –
to share a drink from the well of memory
on this surreal night of nights.
The wine of experience grows better with age
(or so they say)
and like an addict who just can’t quit,
I have come to once again
bask in your madness.
Time’s armies march on.
They will not be stopped, detoured, or detained.
We can run along beside them,
keeping pace for a little while,
choosing the familiar faces in the file
rather than wait for new troops to march by.
(No blame in this: such is our nature.)
I dare not drink too deeply from the cup.
Rather, I sip and play at it,
fearing the intoxication
that total immersion will bring.
Does our true nature surface at such times,
only to break like bubbles at the brim,
pissing out our memories
when the spell is over and …
flushing them in the present?
Why must I always come back, my friend?
(Memory is a terrible thing.)
Whenever we come together like this,
the departed dead walk among us again.
Your madness spills over and
I soak it up like an old sponge –
soon saturated.
Your demons come and torment you.
I can only watch –
helpless.
That time in the past
visits me now and then
(though far less often as time goes by),
but made its home long years ago
with you forever and never left –
always sitting there
quiet in the corner
with bedroll and hotpot –
sometimes moving to the center of the room
on nights such as this
when you feed it …
keeping it strong.
Dan Thompson (PhD) is a U.S. Army veteran and former editor and professor whose poetry, personal essays, articles, and reviews have appeared in scholarly as well as literary journals (including in the forthcoming April 2025 issue of Jerry Jazz Musician and, most recently, in the fall 2024 and spring 2025 issues of Canary and Rat’s Ass Review). In an earlier life, he worked as a music producer for educational videos and as a disc jockey at a country-music radio station.