TED GREENWALD'S LIFE
(1942-2016)

Scratching your poetry kits
into life's media perspective
recalled as a poet
without a near miss
as a modernist language guy
in the bottleneck of art
who died and went
from the earth's grievance
to carve out your part
by a redwood tree
outnumbered by the spirit
in a two cent unworthy world
rising high in the reputation
of critics who matter
about your swan lake eloquence
to give words an oral
or printed chance
to scatter painted violets,
Pacific time
away from a safe house
of a runaway status quo
from an insomniac's sleep
upon a carved sunflower bridge
hearing tremors
from a speculation's ego
as you remember
a California earth quake struck
in a mordant atmosphere
from a fifth dimension
in the sun filled dawn
resonant from your love
of a verb's declension
from shrinks ad nauseum
which scatters your remains
from your reading lips
of a cabin fever's paranoia
we hear deep music
of the nightfall
running off the aftershocks
from my composure
of a cool telephone call
to me telling me
you are gone.