My mentor spoke to me of two rivals,
Once, they had been friends in some distant past.
But the years have eaten their love and made grudges manifest.
|The two shattered into broken glass

To my wise master I asked only one,
One question... In all my range.
One question I asked:
“What changed?”

In the outskirts, at the home of my daughter
Where you can stare at the stars or passing cars
None more brighter than the other,
We share memories of my grandmother.
In the photographs, she looks so much younger.
Not frail, but a fighter, lover and saintly|

To me, she asks plainly,
One question, and one question only.
Sifting through the ages of years past:
“What Changed?”

At the kitchen table, feeling inadequate,
My lover screaming and frustrated,
I recall memories when we had been intimate.
Times when movement was made for desire and not duty
|A calendar of nights left in confused abstinence

I interrupt.
She delays rage.
I beg,
“What Changed?”

_

In the last few hours of night
The dawn reaches me at last.
I had locked moments-
Literal seconds of time as the truth.
But it was always changing
In flux and morphing.
Turning into something new
Just for a moment, and then on again
“What Changed?”
Everything.
Always.

"I write because writing is the hardest work I’ve ever done. It is slow and painstaking and frustrating. I do not begin with an idea or a theme, and I don’t make outlines. I don’t have a plan for the ending or, usually, for the next page or the next line. Even short pieces might take shape over years. Everything that I have ever seen, done, or felt, had, shared, or lost, is in play, and*
the word of the day is, on most days, confusion

I no longer regret writing, or the life I have made along the way. I’ve learned too much and come too far, and I am in pursuit of an art form. It took a long time, and a lot of work, to get to this point, and I will never find an end to it. I have a problem that can keep me busy for the rest of my life. I have something to look forward to."

Donald Antrim^


~~~

though the waters are eerily placid,
the beard roughened wind
beneath a grey, solemn overcast,
predicts, foretells, enhances, over casts (ha!)
the mood of the moment

but it is not causal for
native, irregularly regular
is the word of the day,
on most days,
confusion

life is my tale of two cities,
for now, for me,
it is best and worst of times,
a cyclical, bent and dinged cylinder,
contains a shape shifting persona
seeking the solidity of a
single polarity

higher highs and lower lows,
the new normal, a new word,
still a slung slang concoction,
not yet unapproved by Merriam Webster

I drink up the external contradictions of
the stiff breeze buffeting the
serenity of the water's horizon
a perspective that always calms,
mirror mocking, so matching
the stiffened interior of
this buffeted flesh form

"I no longer regret writing,
or the life I have made along the way
I’ve learned too much and
come too far, and I am in pursuit
of an art form"

rewriting my own internal art form, daily,
incorporating the free, external, unasked for edits,
craft blending the backwards and the forward,
living the confusion that birthed
this poem,
this person,
this art form
~~~
July 18, 2015
Shelter Island, N.Y.

a man who thinks
thoughts once un-thought
may find himself alone

a man who goes
places once unknown
may never come back home

a man who dreams
dreams once un-dreamt
is laughed at by his peers

a man who fights
the un-fought fight
is forced to face his fears

but a man afraid
to think new thoughts
dream new dreams
and venture forth standing tall
a man unable to face his fears
forsake his peers and stand alone

Is hardly a man at all

if you wake every morning
and do nothing to make your life better
it will not get any better
if you wake every morning
and do something to make your life better
then surely no matter
how bad life might seem right now

it will get better