I
Poetry starts
Off in melancholy
Suicide
Preoccupied
With differences and death
Fidelity and failure
I guess all of us
Poets are a little depressed.

We lay down the bricks
One by one
To
Follow our path.
We put on our shoes
Our pants
Our shirt
Cut our hair
Looking into the mirror
Wondering wondering
Whose that stranger there?

Driven by hormonal storms
The door for psychosis
Can open or shut.
Chemo warfare dictates our moods
Immortality fragility
Days which never end
Lovers one after the other
In
Images played
Payed in time
Moving away.

Unconscious
Conscious
Who can say
The body holds
All the keys
Dictates all the way.

II

Then it moves on
To broken hearts
****** insertions
Gentle caress
Every fantasy
Every movie  played
Every Tuesday .

Fantasies and goals
Work that out
Some events and ends
Better ideas
Then realities
Hard to know though
Until it's too late.

Relationships
Commitments
Do I go it alone
Or
Do another do I really know.
Do I hide
Or
Do I show
Who I am and what I know
Is
Love my virtue?

Children
Offspring
Feels like forever
For a short while.
Hope and heart
Heart
And
Heartbreak
Knowing when to intervene
Or let nature take its course.
Do the best we can
And try to heal the rest.

III

Decisions are made
Some genetic
Some environmental
Nature loads the bullets
Nurture pulls the trigger
Nature versus nurture
As old as the hills.

On the periphery
There
Is
Sickness pain psychosis
And just those
For whom
The cultural games
Are far too hard
Too complicated
To master or play.

Bohemians a forgotten caste
Of whom we do reside
Stand outside looking in
Artists
Poets
Drunks
Arguing about the nature of nurture
Trying to find
The portrait
The exact word
The one last drink
Describing all of this.

IV

Into the oven
Alchemy waits
Processing
All
The past and future fates.

Immobile and paralyzed
Until in this suspended state
Begins to generate
The longing to find meaning
And create.
It all blossoms
And becomes possible
And you are riding
A
Different kind of wave
Running
Back and forth
Up at dawn
Putting your boots on
Even
Our sleep and dreams
Go fast
Until the work of our lives is done.

V

In this moment of reflection
Did I do what I intended
To do?
And was it all a waste?
And the final dilemma
Is asked
But never resolved.

Did I live my life with integrity
Or
Did I run and hide
From
My true nature
The phantom captain
Calling from inside?
Or
Do I collapse
Into the despairs
Of what might have been?

It brings to mind
The moment my mother died
As her face formed
Into that wondrous smile
Not only a last gift
For the living
But
A smile left
For a life worth living...