Brian's Tribute Poem by Raj Dronamraju

He told me how he saw a longshoreman disembowelled on the Oakland docks in the early 1970's
And I myself can't believe I'm still living
Like someone who went out many hours ago and finds themselves still not back at home
And I think of you, how you used to put my records back in the sleeves sideways
So the record would slide out immediately when I picked it up

I panicked him, he reached for his ego
And attempted to use it to put me down
He doesn't get that I have no vested interest in his concrete shoe belief
I am here but not really in the way that matters
And I think of you and breakfast conversations with your brother
Him shouting that we are out of milk

You suck on your eventual redundancy like a lozenge
But it doesn't make the burning in your throat go away
His ambition was so limited as to be Desdemona in room full of files and white collar resentment
And I thought of us and impetuous actions taken by individuals
You are far away, the action of moving as one
This distance is your tribute