It’s always the same
when I write, always
litanies,
lists,
comma after comma,
the occasional
semicolon;
there’s even a period now and then.
Never a swan.
Time, time, time
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Tag Archives: reflection
Dustup
We make out of the quarrel with others, rhetoric, but of the quarrel with ourselves, poetry. ~ W. B. Yeats
This mirror is no help at all,
such a sludge of regret.
I used to think I was either divine
or pointless, cringed at the
occasional glimpse of ordinary,
that hint of sameness
lurking in the corner of my reflection.
This, God’s apple, was punishment enough
for the transgression of being.
Thus bends the day
Thus bends the day
toward nightfall
unbidden, unrelinquished
without reference or meaning
So goes another lost anthem
drifting off to bedlam
from the sheer friction of time
Whatever hounds or tracks our lives
however keen, persistent,
(such wisps as bind us to our fate)
Yet stronger than all
our pining flings the day gone
And we,
too full of surrendering
to simply release
While the wick burns lower
the dwindle-dream
Moi
Here I sit
Just a big lump of protoplasm
Encased in plant fiber and animal hide
No more purpose or meaning
Than a slime mold
No, a slime mold
Is at least interesting
Assembling and disassembling
To suit the moment
Bright yellow
Daring any living thing
To do something about it
Daring me
To be more than that
Or at least
That
Diptych for a late Spring
I
You are meaningless, it is said,
without those who went before
in whose long shadows you strive,
in whose helix you twine
inextricably.
Ghosts, you call them,
wraiths with no claim to substance,
until, in a mirror,
you see them bounding through
your fate,
great feet tramping up the path
you thought was yours alone.
How can you be so like them?
How can it have gone unnoticed
so long?
Is nothing left to separate you?
II
Fine, let’s have it, then.
I’ll be the last witness
to poll the seasons.
But you’ve lost your will
to power, haven’t you?
Would you think your
reflection grotesque, off-putting,
if you saw me now?
Would you see an empty mask,
devoid of all you held dear?
As you wish.
We are both powerless
to divine our true meaning.
exiles child 