![Patricia meets a young man in Austin
He tells her a story
about the time he decided to end it all
Walking home from buying the gun
he meets a woman on the street
She smiles at him as they pass
He throws the gun away](https://i0.wp.com/www.neilmeili.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Austin.jpg?resize=600%2C600)
Austin
![Patricia meets a young man in Austin
He tells her a story
about the time he decided to end it all
Walking home from buying the gun
he meets a woman on the street
She smiles at him as they pass
He throws the gun away](https://i0.wp.com/www.neilmeili.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Austin.jpg?resize=600%2C600)
Thinking of Sylvia Plath on what would have been her 87th birthday – and all the poets and writers she has inspired – but not in that way.
Today is Random Acts of Kindness Day – this poem is a good reminder that even the smallest kind act, at the right time, in the right place, can truly change somebody’s world.
September is Suicide Awareness and Prevention Month – here is hoping friendship and poetry can help.
DISSECTING THE FROG OF WAR
And when did the buffalo
driven over the cliff
become the lemming leaping
as if the decision was his own
PAPA AND ME
Lately I have been much with Hemingway
and happy to go where he has gone
and done what he has done
I have been gut-punched
shrapnel-laced and toro-gorged
Been as cowardly and brave as Francis M.
tasted Gulf Stream salt on sun cracked lips
and the moveable feast of Paris
I’m glad he didn’t leave a note
that spoke about that gun
SUPPER WITH THE PhD
I sit across from my friend
and watch as he drowns
his well developed brain
Every day after work
he puts another million
brain cell kittens in a sack
and takes them to the lake
It is not for me to judge
This small death each day
may well have kept him from
the larger choice his father made
And a diminished capacity may help
when listening to the daily news
or hanging out with poets
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