Everything I Say... Does Me This Way...

It has been so long since I’ve written a sweet poem

About a fair haired woman at the cabin in my mind

Or the fiery souled lover with the come-hither eyes

And it has been weeks since I looked across the bar

At a lover who I know will break my heart and inspire a few new verses

My pragmatism and soul-surrendering always in a constend fight

My desire to find her and find peace

Or suffer the barbs of unrequited love

And have decades of love poems

For two nights I slept on the ground

Sacred as it is

I cooked my rations of pork and ate bread

Stretching out each evening and feeling the mist of New Market cool my face

Today my bones and muscles are tired

The soreness is a reminder

Of the pain that many felt so many years ago

The most unnatural act I can imagine

Is forgiving myself for sins I’ve been committing

It wouldn’t feel so

If it weren’t for my self-loathing

And my confidence is wavering

Tittering on the edge of failure or success

Either way comes the fall

Reflections in dark water

Silver shimmers of my old face

My hand cups the cold water

And spills to my tongue

Drips off my beard and stains my shirt

Refreshing my heart

I am intimidated by some of the old men I meet

They walk about as if they own the world

Stoicism is not a envied trait

There is no redemption in an old lion who continues to bite

We should by jovial as we age

Life is the joke and age is the punchline