poem by Shaun Grub
painting by Greg Grub
I miss you Grub and here's the rub
There was never enough trouble between us
We kept the party on the edge going
Proceeding unseen and without a fuss
I miss when it was just the two of us
Someone to trust because it was put to the test
We stood out and stepped away from the rest
We outran so many demons and Archangels and men
Every day another tragic play we starred in
Felt like a life long indoctrination
Into the darkness penetrating beneath
The skin of our ancestry outlined in stone
And crags of jagged pillars traced out
Against the sky graying toward sunset
We would meet at dusk and climb
To confront in shadow by this fortress
Grub Rock remains a lonely outpost
One sixth of the way up Mill Creek Canyon
Where I buried Stanley the guinea pig one day
In a hole I dug in the hard shale packed earth
No matter where our secret headquarters were
At the bottom of Beacon Hill or out on Chalk Pond
Or defending the Pub Grub from ennui attack
At the top of Mt. Ascutney's pyramid
In hidden ice caverns outside Portland, Maine
By moonlit rivers and alligator skins in Slippery Rock
And dragon winged bat caves lost in the Ozarks
Crouched after midnight in the echoing White Tower
Awake in deepest shadow and alive in the woods
The starry mantle tracking slowly by over head
While the moon stared down like an eye should
Have a guttering fire from deep in the canyon's throat
We parked the CRX by Little Wild Horse
Just as the sun set into blackening evening
And began our seven mile hike up the slot
Headlamps revealing a six foot segment ahead
We tossed glow sticks forward to help light the way
As we approached they shone like rarest treasure
Looking straight up hundreds of feet of yawning chasm
Above a vein of stars strip mined our breath away
We took cat naps curled up on two pods like stones
Drew breath from time to time from our peace pipe
On the lookout for glowing pairs of eyes
Heading toward us down from the other side
I miss the road trips we used to take
The Quantum Turtle with the antler rack up front
The Eagle shield propped over the roof like the prow
Of a faded jade metallic Viking dragonfly ship
We fought side by side wearing full armor
We made together that long lost October ago
I dyed mine chestnut brown and forest green
And pounded out my barrel helm of sixteen gauge steel
Veterans of so much more than the psychic wars
We raged in campaigns from down south to up north
The blood in our veins ran cold as ice elves
But the dream kept us warm as whale blubber
Grub brothers always willing to bring more together
My own blood brother and a lot of our friends
Were openly welcomed right into the fold
Little did we know how soon we'd grow old
We floated on the winds of dreamtime always
Morphed into Centaurcycles stalking Brighton and Allston
Late at night chains in neutral sliding backward
While we pedaled into the pitch dark of a park
Riding forward on our bikes like bats using sonar
To pierce our way through the absolute darkness
We could sense the curving strip of asphalt
That led us far too deep within this part of town
The lucid revelations during the Year of the Dragon
That was thirty-one years ago when our dream shined
Where we painted ourselves into the iconography of angels
Pressed our identities into the superwoven fabric of fantasy
We lived the truth within the lie every day
Fueled from inside our eyes at home late at night
Seeing easily by the trace amount of starlight
Limned along the rocky slopes of mountains
We moved rivers and walked like giants
Camped out in a snowstorm on Peak's Island
Rounded up by soldiers carrying M-16s at the mercado
In Comayaguela while flies crawled on racks of beef
Colorful parrots nodded their heads allowing passage
Into the jungles of the Copan ruins where we examined
The long ago soaked into stone and dried black blood
Staining the chiseled tortoise altar of a death god
Twisted vines strangled carved stone figures
Feeling fine two lone desperadoes confronting
The unknown together as one dynamic unit
The Grub Bros forever prepared to battle evil
Today I can look out my window and see
Not only the clouds being carried westward
By the constant winds blown across time
And time again but the open blue of the sky
Meets my eye in a familiar old union with you
The fact we never hang out anymore
Is no different than it was before only
You know it now better than I do
I miss you, old Grubbler and troublemaker
Ale drinker, SCA warrior and Dungeon Master
Provocative agent of post-apocalyptic disaster
My brother in arms eternal against the Faker
It may have taken almost half a lifetime to learn
How a beloved person's spirit lives on so
Effortlessly indelible in the wind and the rain
Until the flesh of memory remains an echo
Informing the high definition frequency
Of this ongoing radiant bell jar of electric
Iron plasma recycled through our hearts
Powering the eternal engine of the quasar
Where you are now in the ether or the other
Doesn't even matter anymore that's the beauty
Eh, ain't it great, one stayed late and you went
Early bird gets the lair of the purple worm
With Owl-bears and Mind-flayers haunting me
All I want is to get lost in labyrinths of fantasy
Where a glance in the mirror means only to see
The one true reflection of who we're meant to be
~ for my brother Greg Alden Davis
from Shaun Armando Lawton ~
You can only ever be alive to me.
Otherwise I could not survive, you see.
So please try to keep on looking out over me.
I'll be watching every glint and glimmer in the scree.
Examining the stones for any traces of your face I may see.
In so many ways you are now everywhere I look and that sets me free.
The long adventure together we called our lives has led me to this decree.
One reason I'll never forget you is that now I know you're still alive within me.
