Elegy to Chris Cornell, for Patrick Valicella

An elegy to the musician Chris Cornell, who committed suicide.

Elegy to Chris Cornell

For Patrick Varicella

In the dilated pupil of a black hole sun

A man’s voice reverberates

Echoes

Expands

Progresses past the flesh of the evening and

Transcends

Reaching grasping rasping

Screeching hungry

In a guttural growl

That flows in vibrations

Flows in waves like his hair

Like a river like a dare

To call us all to confession

To absolve us from our sins

To begin the process of unravelling

To put ourselves back together again

Rag dolls soiled and stained

But loved, but loved, but loved,

Tenderly and gently

With soft spoken whispers

The man’s voice crystalizes

Our hopes our dreams our fears

Our hunger our hunger our hunger

To fill a hole big as the sun

One that resides inside the soul that

Even his voice couldn’t fill.

And so we are left today to pray

To play impromptu duets

With an incandescent spoonman

And dance and dance and dance

In the name of one more lost

Amidst the fray.

And so that is our job today-

To dance to sing to play to pray

To emit our own soul piercing shrieks

Into the sky into the infinite

Reverberating throughout eternity

Waves upon waves upon waves

Well met

Until they blend and soften and

Become quiet

Softly now

Quiet

Quiet

Softly now gentle

Quiet

Until there is nothing left but a whisper

A whisper

A wisp of hair

A wisp smoke

A wisp of smoke in waves fading

Fading slowly

Into the ether

To rest

Finally

To rest, to rest, to rest.