I don't know how someone
can love across the ages
or even haunt
coz I guess in strict terms
you really are a ghost
or maybe just a friendly spirit
who's decided to come around for a while
When you came into my life,
I hardly knew
you'd be everywhere I looked:
on street signs
in magazines
on the radio
and especially on TV
like last night
with that stupid Stephen King movie
about the Pet Semetary
when the guy turned out to be named (you guessed it!)
Lloyd
and like most days, there were others too
that popped out at me from my readings
(even when I wasn't looking
but, stranger yet, even when I was)
I tried to mind my own business
but my heart had been stolen
Harold, listen
send me a signal flare:
are you really there?
I feel you
I know it's weird
I sense you like heat in the room
and if I had those night-vision glasses
I think I could even see you
because now you live fully
in that world you half-inhabited when you were here:
incandescent
surreal
full of shadow
and shine
it's said the stars
from the early screen
carried a spotlight around inside them
but the way you faced fame was different
you were just doing your job
doggedly
sometimes with grim obsession
creating someone new
who stood out from all the grotesques
just an ordinary
jaunty fellow
with a bruised heart
and unexpected courage
an ordinary soul
that people couldn't get enough of
because they saw him in the mirror
Harold, I
I don't know where to start
I tried to write about you
I tried to write a story, put you in a story
and now I don't know where it'll end
Maybe nowhere
the fate of my (usual) work
This howls within me
for I wish sometimes
I had not had this inspiration
if my story goes nowhere.
It needs to be
for if pictures can be silent,
words cannot be
and I can only make story
in words.