Fragments, Insubstantial

      for Suzanne

Confront we do a life’s regrets at end’s 

Advance and ask if could we live again

The same of all the choices would we make.

Repeat, avoid—the two can never be

Except within the mind’s sweet dreams—believe

The moment’s choice is right or true and pure

We did, so too the sorrow after come.

But should the self betray its own, its bones

So brittle, bleached and dry are what remains.

The day is all, yet screams in echoes loud

Abound of choices made and gone.  The ear

Is numb with everything as if it were

The then and now become as one, without

The pleasure, pain—eternal back we go

Though less of each each time.  Do not by half,

As I have lived, in spoonfuls small, as if 

For greater glory bound than those around

Myself.  A fool for thinking anything

Than what was offered better, turning love

To gall or less by much.  We cannot love

All those who us would love, or wish to share—

Believe that one or two might be our end,

But in the sawdust alleys let ourselves

Too easy, cheap or free.  And shouldn’t we?

Tomorrow’s not for sure, too dull, remote.

Our secrets heavy, only conscience bars 

The way, with many ways around it still,

But for the promise, said unsaid, between

The few who gave without remorse and you, 

Until became it clear or worse in murk,

In cloudy smoke and haze too lost were you,

Who lived within the pulse of life, who thought 

You knew control and what to do in this

The present glory.  Mattered nothing else

Except the freedom boundless, light, discrete

From all the moments come before, all those

That after will arrive.  Indifferent, 

The now, now, now insists its needs be met, 

And unconcerned it is that soon its small

Production closes—yawns and nods were fast

Replacing simple joy in something shared.  

And maybe chaos can more comfort give,

As long as fire fueled.  But no one wants 

To be a sacrifice, to give themselves 

To pyres not their own if little gain

Is there.  What once was only fear felt far

Away, these moment’s dwindling, now so close,

Their dearth, and rarity, the failure plain. 

Why should there not be times to mourn, of all 

The losses we will suffer why not this?

And must we always happy be?  Can we 

In shame’s full glare not stand? Our voice, shall it

Regret’s remorse concede its song?  In short,

Afraid have I more often been that it 

Would come to this, that there is nothing left

For me, that I have not enough or been,

And what there was did not in favor weigh—

The scale so heavy down, to left or right,

But balance none.  It seemed alright and must

Have been to not deny the self, though mixed

With some strange sense of others being good,  

For now. . .  There is an always only now,

Not separate, distinct, but layers, strands 

Or strata back behind our lives, which streams

Within the present throb of blood—our ears

Can’t help but hear the beat and pulse of now,

Now, adding up to what we are and what

We made so wrong.  So many days to have

The good thing done, to see beyond the self,

To balance moments with the whole, to put

On equal footing -- truth, desire -- hold 

Together tendencies to splinter, break, 

Divide against the self—but for a few

Short steps a final dark, or morning light,

A sun that never grows more bright, and low

Across the sky with nights of wanting stars.

Would I the dying cut from self if I 

Knew how to live with what remains—or am

I dead and know it not?  Those stories told,

Of spirits stuck between two worlds, they speak

About we who forget to live, we who

Regard a mirror like a window but

Without reflection glide through life almost 

Unseen, invisible but for a glimpse, 

So small and thin we of ourselves decide 

To show, these fragments, insubstantial shards.