The Sixth Sonnet 

    On the sixth anniversary of the passing of Heathcote Williams

I missed it this year, by one week. But then missing of course is the issue.
Six years ago, your family lost their father and your full fraternity
Its word school. Not to mention the curvature of your nose, that nest
Of hair and the insight which kept the dark dulled, while blazing a trail

Across the chaos shaped cavern. Since you broke through, reason’s
Rubble has been sifted and strewn by the fools whom you excoriated
In verse and in your endtimes chiming essays. In fact, in each of
Your warnings the dawning of a new Poetic age would have cooled

The burning earth housing us. But not for long, sacred H. Your initial
Was a form of bridge between being. So, now there have been
Six years without you and the poems that etched Eden’s shade.

Which was never a real place of course, and yet you still burst
Babylons to locate it. Every day, then, we follow. If only memory
Were more solid; then we could hourly embrace all you made

                                                               David Erdos 8/7/23

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