paper sheafs neatly lined tossed everywhere so careless

you wrote cursive loops so small and skinny like those long fingers

and printing tiny how could you read it but you must have for

those songs stayed alive in your guitar

I remember you polishing that awful smell and it gleaming

like a car with fresh gasoline and an oil change shining powerful in noonday sunshine

on our window seat so important it filled your spot when you were away

so glorious an instrument but your songwriting not

painful and frustrating as withdrawal you sitting for hours head down

trying to fill up your brown black gold guitar case with impossible music

that grinds at twisted strings and runs away whispering in your ear and twirling 'round the room

oh not easy nothing ever was for you Rog writing like a poet and a magician

can he conjure riffs like spells so spectacular? you did once or twice you were good

but not so good that it came easy like to the greats Grateful Dead and Billy Joel

(or so you claimed)

I believe you were good not that I would know

if you were here Rog, you'd know

you knew everything about guitar

and almost nothing for writing it was hard

sweating with frustration writer's block you searched like a huge room with only one door

and a padlock can you find your way out to the sheet music behind the door

Rog you knew it was there

so close yet so far and you tried with effort unmatched to pull the clefs out of a hat

that didn't go so well

those days of you the table and pencils broken lead on the floor

punching the wall and me not knowing what to do

music's not beautiful it isn't haunting like Sounds of Silence

it's painful frustrating bleeding fingers inky hands headaches torn strings canceled gigs

brittle drumstick tape and paper money so exchanged like dogeared lyrics

that was it

you knew the underside of vocal unheard melody

like thrush in those last few months on and off of the breathing tube

couldn't sing can't write not anymore and your throat white with oppurtunistic infection

music to you it didn't come easy

beauty is pain repeated 'till your cocoon splits open but it never did

not at twenty-nine your final song it ends with an echo

a silent bow

thank you New York City my love

and goodnight