For Steve Carolan R.I.P.

 STEVE

“Hello young man”

you would begin our conversations

sitting inside Caffe Trieste or outside,

under bright stars or spring sunsets,

then you would weave a story into our evenings

adding quips, jokes, observations, remembrances, and 

reading “statements” kept in a small notepad, I believe

you had hundred of those filled with words describing

friends, talks, a meal, a book, walks, or thousands

of daily occurrences recorded in tiny, neat, precise handwriting.

A poet friend called our group the lost poets,

now you, Alan, and Perry have joined forces

in another dimension, one we all will cross in time

in time, this is where you would quote T.S. Eliot or

perhaps one of your heroes: James Joyce,

then I would counter with a thought or counter point,

maybe mention Spender, Auden, or MacNeice,

and the night would go back and forth

until we parted ways or Alan, Owen, Perry, Buford, and Mark came by

and poems were read round the table, laughing, listening,

and being lost poets again and again.

I know you would suggest I use another word than again

or, I imagine, you looking over this rushed poem, and asking

“Do you really want to use the word ‘dimension?’ is it necessary

for this poem to be so long?” I know you would hate this elegy

for you, my saying goodbye in the way we met and kept

a friendship over years…

maybe I will take out the word dimension.

”Good night young man, I will see you later.”

Good night Steve…