Something beautiful has left this place…
Without warning, without a symphony
God came down at dawn and crouched alongside the bed and waited
For the exact time of the exact moment He and only He knew, when it was appropriate to lift his soul like a swindler, a kid on the street with nimble fingers
Something joyous and grand, something regal has gone out of this place…
Without announcement, without so much as a knock on the door or chirping bird, a car horn, a marching band
And the void threatens to flatten my soul like the edges of a copper coin
Suggests that I give up right now and raise a finger in hopes of finding blame to place
My God, something beautiful was just here!
Trailed a sparkling beauty across the night sky that could be seen for what must’ve been millions of miles.
Did you catch it? Say that you did.
Say that you were there, that you shared it with us all.
Lest I break down right here in this dirt on your behalf, unable to lift my heavy head.
It makes it hard to sing again at first.
I hear you crying falsetto and it is doves,
and you were making your way upward all this time.
Dear Michael,
How are you? I am well.
Though I could be better.
This morning I was cleaning out your space, the one in my heart.
And you know what I found? Old shoeboxes full of joy,
Crisp and stacked like letters. Big heaping piles of it.
I’m still finding it. Under the couch, in the close, behind the fridge.
How much of that shit did we use?
I wouldn’t dare throw it out. I suspect it will keep.
I sat right where I was and went through it.
You make me smile so.
With your gasps and grabs and “shamone’s” and otherwise inexplicable exclamations,
I am collecting them like raw colored diamonds.
You seem to have chosen now to be more alive to me. Why?
At once I am inconsolable.
Then you flash that smile,
say something silly, standing bow-legged and grappling at your bee ay ell ell ess for God’s sake
And I am altogether lifted involuntary, high out of woe and into a joy I could somehow never reach while you were here.
Someone pleaded in front of no one in particular: “VISIT ME IN MY DREAMS!”
And I was soon arrested with tears that seemed too hot
Yes, because I loved you but probably because I lacked courage to ask that.
Oh how the world is on my shoulders now.
And I remember some stupid thing you told me,
About how I should straighten up my act, boogie down.
Off the wall, off the wall. I’m supposed to live my life this way.
And you’re right. But that don’t make it easy.
You were the one who woke me in the morning.
And when anyone calls it’s your voice I hear.
I trust I will see you again.
I don’t much have an interest in any place that would separate us.
Heaven is a place that is also full of light and beauty and good will.
It is a place that you seemed to know well, as if you’d been and were trying to get back.
Mama said you wouldn’t’ve come back even if you could. Good for you.
When was the last time you were so selfish?
I bet it was like this.
I bet you took one look down at all that was left,
at the continents left arrested, empty, unbuilt stadiums,
and the boy with the sad eyes
and the father and the family’s joined hands like children in a summer game.
I bet the satellites were beaming hot with details and speculation and unreliable sources.
But then I bet you took one look up,
into that love,
spectacular and without noise and negotiations and contracts,
and flashing bulbs and leading questions and tinted windows, and children forced to lie
I bet you looked into those eyes,
pleading without condition and devoid of carefully crafted motives
but all encompassing and more than you could’ve ever imagined.
You probably looks right into those eyes,
and that was that.
Michael Jackson: August 29, 1958-June 25th 2009
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