The magic' s gone Now something put out this light, the sea becomes wider in the night. Our eyes were used to the lighthouse, the way it drew the line between the soft glitter of the waves and the rocks' black silhouette. Little boats pass by this place in the dark, now - that fantastical twilight is gone. Cristina Alberto Lisbon, Portugal A Wake With Michael michael and i are in the front garden i am pounding a big hunk of granite making a powder to adhere to the rock face of a waterfall/pond i‘m building and i wonder if michael is really here in a cognizant sense i entertain the fantasy that as i taste the scotch he tastes it and i take a good slug for him probably michael no longer has a cock nor acquired a pussy but maybe he is sitting with a 30 year old Sophia Loren and letting her convince him to fuck her these thoughts taste nothing like scotch but I presume that they are all absolutely true and false so i pick the ones which make me feel good and try to figure chaotic odds that those are michael and then i think about the truth of chaotic spasms of tears but i know he would have dug the waterfall. dean creighton Maple City, Michigan To Michael McNeilley your words your soul as big as life a sense of love in velvet tongues you speak we spoke in the air of cyberspace distant brothers of the mind of the pen the kindness spread from friends and lovers your light is their light beyond the planes of common existence to the thralls of the astral palace like a flower in bloom like the buzz of the hummingbird like the wind through the trees of forever autumn all an angels melody... thank you, Mike, for your infinite light and may the grace of immortality fall upon your wings.... filipski Buffalo, NY for Michael a gray sky in the middle of July my cat catches a small bird and leaves it on the walk one deep purple chrysanthemum blooms early the death of a poet ripples on the wind layne russell california website

on coming home finding that Michael McNeilley has passed away the soul is a bird flown South unknown climes bird song babbling brook song pencil paper inkflow printsong electronic tapping keyboard rhythm song song tell the world a man is singing wind passing through tall grasses waves & prophecies time's season flowers blooms quick fragile easily crushed beauty pauses takes a breath continues on Bill Beaver Tucson, AZ Cut for McNeilley In a dream you cut my hair just enough to make a difference. Your long hair a gold and silver irony in the sunlight moving through the crack in a window. It was so natural the way you held the locks over me and shaved close to the skull. A gray cat followed the strands like strange feathers to the floor. I stood up remembering my lover runs her fingers in my hair. The shears buzzed in your hand and you pushed your glasses back up your bridge, You can't walk around like that. I felt the newly cut path. It'll grow back. I had to leave. I knew her hand waited to begin its healing. I felt young and stupid again. You smiled, Least I could do for a friend. Last night, as the news of your death deepened, I read your poems and waited for another dream with you. Dancing Bear Editor-in-Chief, Disquieting Muses San Francisco bay area Mitakuye oyasin (All my relations), Host of FM91.5, KKUP's "Out of Our Minds" Dancing Bear's Lair Flowers for Michael Into the vase goes a vertical, say a blue belled spike which goes up but hangs down, because that way it balances. Then two horizontals, towards you, and to my side, and one should be purple, and maybe berried, fruitful and giving. The other, a single rose, red and truthful, simple, yet not so, for complex things can be said with the simplest of petals. In the back, a furnish of leaves, fronds for fecundity, startling spikes, generous palms, and everything evergreen. Colin Will Edinburgh, in Scotland WIND WHISPERINGS Cold winds blow thru me, and questions begging why does emptiness resemble sorrow when friends and lovers die? We stand on cloudy towers our pockets full of screams, and hope a distant sunrise will somehow warm our dreams with it's streaks of golden light arching past a filmy blue; but a very rosy morning means clouds are waiting too. to curse the day, to curse the night is wasting precious breath, that embracing life, we not lose sight of the mystery of death. we miss the one's who've left us, yet know they're waiting still for our arrival soon is coming beyond that windy hill. Morn not the dead but weep for those who live with resignation and with blame and sadly who forgets the wind is whispering their name. zen sutherland North Carolina website