J. Pascin

i will see you again 

but not yet

my friend 

i whispered 

several years after we met 

and i was dead not he 

or they or all else who came to play 

the many artists and hangers-on drinking and eating and loving till the early dawn 

they might say it was madness in my blood, i wrote 

and merely slit my wrists & hung by throat 

threw a bloody testament on the nearby wall 

before the solo show about Cecile and my downfall 

i knew personal triumph & color 

& whores with fine lines and wit or maybe duller 

but if you slept i was alert at Montmartre always the flirt 

never the overly-serious painter as i wanted to be known

so i fade, 

become fainter & fainter 

and wonder between the many bottles of wine 

if i will ever see you again.