His mind was a large auditorium filled
with people who had touched his life
drinking buddies and former lovers
ex-wives and musicians and fans
old enough to remember him
and he had called them all here
to the auditorium in his mind
in order to thank them
in order to say to them
because you were in it! I thank
each and every one of you
for your company and the good
times we shared, the tunes we played
the loving we made
the dances we did
the loud laughter that sometimes
was hard to stop
I've had one hell of a life!
though when the police discovered him
on the park bench, dead
from exposure to a freezing night
homeless, once a musician
learned later from dental records
though nobody at the station
remembered him, and not even
the short obituary in the paper
which misspelled his name
mentioned that in 1962
on a warm summer midnight
he had played a solo of
I Fall In Love Too Easily
on his baritone sax
that brought tears to more
than one eye in witness
and of course the wake
in the auditorium of his mind
the highlight of his old age
was never mentioned
--Charles Deemer
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