So what if Google told Netflix I searched Blade Runner trivia in order to finish your elegy?

When I wrote the last line, you know, 
the one about electric seeds, 
that slant allusion only fellow Dickians 
would recognize (my coded love for you 
now networked, digitized, available 
to you, disembodied brother, loose 
electricity), it felt a marvel, like a message
back from you (as we promised, once, 
over coffee and cheap smokes, to do,
whoever died first) that ten minutes 
after I wrote that line and turned on 
the flat screen (no longer synecdochically 
only metonymically the tube), Netflix 
recommended Blade Runner 
as a Top Pick for You.

The coincidence felt so pure. Like you 
had pulled strings in the electronic world
to say hello, thank you for the elegy,
thank you for not letting me sink,
obituary-less, into obscurity. Until 
it occurred to me, perhaps this is no 
message, no spiritual synchronicity,
just a fucking contract between silicon-
licking corporations swindling everybody, 
kidnapping kids, herding sheep,
linking algorithms for maximum profit—
assholes making sure whenever I search
for something in one place, I get it in another;
I get it, what I want, and they get me—
my time, my attention: virtual currency.

And then, simultaneous to my inner rant,
I felt, no, heard you burst across space,
you maniacal, mystical mathematician, 
you dreaming android, you Dick trickster!
Ba ha ha! you guffawed, Why isn't
the language of math also the language 
of soul, of consciousness? I am an algorithm!
Your wireless desire shot through cyberspace
became my voice’s conduit! Of course! This, 
your final poetic proverb, enigmatic epigram,
your magnum opus of philosophical jokes:
William Wayne Reed: Algorithm and Asshole. 
Under cover of night, I would steal into Riverside 
Cemetery, carve it on your headstone, cosmic
old loner, if you have one. I would sprinkle 
your unlikely ashes over Dick’s final plot.
I would sing it in alliterative liturgy.
Giggle amen. Goodbye, my loyal friend,
my Gordian tempunaut.

2021

Elegy for Bill Reed

Day one was easy. We drank coffee and talked for hours
on a hip Fort Mundane patio. Phantom of the café, eccentric, broke—
in lonesome kenosis, you pondered Fibonacci in the hearts of flowers.

Lazy dharma sealed our communion. I worried if you ate or showered.
Dear brother, you always reeked of ashtrays and ancient smoke 
when we drank coffee, watched ends glow, and talked for hours.

Proud mathematician, you bragged that you fled CU’s ivory tower.
I applauded. We were sort of Fort Morgue buddhas when we spoke
of nada, paused and wrote of Fibonacci in the hearts of flowers.

My kids called you Uncle Bill on Thanksgiving. Your exponential power
grew petaled mandalas, maxims, poems, countless philosophical jokes.
I bloomed, too, when we drank coffee and talked for hours.

Yellow walls, yellow teeth knocked out by stroke. Your guffaw never dour.
Soft-hearted old hermit, saved by love—your fractal mind, unyoked,
simply preferred, over kinfolk, Fibonacci in the hearts of flowers.

Especially Rose. You texted once: I fear dying alone. How were
we to know you would—of course you would, gentle misanthrope—
as we laughed, lit matches, drank coffee and talked for hours?
Now you dream electric seeds, Fibonacci in the hearts of flowers.

2021

for my dear friend, with no obituary, who would likely prefer the title, "Billanelle"