A poem seeking guidance when the merry are away before the after shower
Recited in a living room, amid eye-rolls
and guttural laughs,
he reconstitutes those words
of praise and confinement,
seeking ever-present hands held out,
but met with
individual Friday nights
with Rome a pleasure
and Main Street a bore.
You exist nowhere but my mind
so why do I
conjure
such dreadful companions?
Sensible men dream sensible dreams and
live
sensible lives
and rot away
sensibly.
I burn and disappear and reappear to burn again.
Shadows hold no glory, no fortelling
of what we could be,
only what we could contrive at –
the language of the past unlocks my soul.
– October 21, 2026
