Gabriel Read Online Free Page A

at ten-and-a-half
    Tagore wrote
The Child
for Rani
    On her deathbed at thirteen
    It could not assuage his guilt
    He returned to the Grief House
    For his youngest son his eldest daughter
    Tears could not assuage his guilt
    When Ungaretti lost his nine-year-old boy
    He understood that death is death
    In an extremely brutal way
    It was the most terrible event of my life
    I know what death means
    I knew it even before
    But when the best part of me was ripped away
    I experienced death in myself
    From that moment on
    It would strike me as shameless
    To talk about it
    That pain will never stop tormenting me
    Adolescents in the city
    Of noise young men
    In the land of confusion
    Gabriel called him
Broseph
    Joe called him
Hebro
    Laurie called it a
bromance
    Broseph liked rock and roll old-style
    Hebro liked emo-punk
    Stomp to the music
    They smoked weed and watched ballgames
    Got into everything with everyone
    Hustled girls everywhere
    They got the call for the rave
    Subwayed it out to Williamsburg
    Banged around clubs
    Gabriel came home with a skinny Russian
    Model who sat there mutely
    And refused to eat
    She skipped out on him once
    When he was down with a cold
    No no man you’ve got it all wrong
    Joe explained in the restaurant
    We don’t need relationships
    What we need are relations
    Often they argued about one thing or another
    It was all very Shakespearean Joe said
    Gabe was my dude my equal
    Me and Gabe were young men together
    Whenever I did my endeavors
    Gabe was with me
    We took him to Arlington Park racetrack
    But they wouldn’t let him in the clubhouse
    Because he was wearing a t-shirt and jeans
    He disappeared
    And in ten minutes he came back wearing
    A button-down a tie and a blue blazer
    He stopped by with a dozen incense candles
    You don’t even like incense
Laurie said
    It didn’t matter he had gotten them for free
    He bought ten cheeseburgers for ten bucks
    On the dollar menu at McDonald’s
    And threw six of them away
    He brought a six-pack of beer
    Into the common room of the nursing home
    To watch a football game with my mother
    Because everyone needs a good beer
    Especially the guy on the ventilator
    And the nurses who work too hard
    He said the countryside
    Made him feel nervous he wanted
    A twenty-four-hour kind of city
    He woke me up at two a.m.
    To take a walk he needed to talk
    Laurie pulled me back into bed
    He had flat feet and an awkward gait
    He didn’t like to dance he liked
    To go to raves and chill with friends
    He couldn’t pay attention
    But his meds made him feel sleepy
    And he sold them to college kids
    He liked to kick back and remember
    The time we were riding home
    In a taxicab on the West Side Highway
    And my mother offered to take him
    To a strip club for his twenty-first birthday
    What’s wrong with that
she wanted to know
    Why they couldn’t celebrate together
    That’s just what you want
he bellowed
    Going for a lap dance with Grandma
    He liked to kick back and declare
    He wanted to track down his birth mother
    To see if he really had Celtic blood
    He liked to kick back and tell my family
    About the time he saw an American Hasidic
    Jewish reggae musician at Hampshire College
    He saw Nicholas Cage going up an escalator
    In a movie theater and turned to his friends
    I hate Nicholas Cage he has such a big head
    He liked to kick back and tell us
    How much he liked weed and ’shrooms
    How bad could it be for you
he said
    It comes out of the ground
    He liked to kick back and roll a spliff
    With his friends at night
    He always liked to go higher and higher
    We’re here
he’d say lifting his hand
    To the middle of his chest
    But we need to go here
    He continued on
    And raised his hand up to his neck
    Friedrich Rückert wrote 425 poems
    After his two youngest children
    Died from scarlet fever
    Within sixteen days of each other
    In 1833 and 1834 he could not cope
    And often thought they had gone out
    For a while
they’ll be home soon
    He told himself to tell his wife
    They’re only