On foolishly allotted ample room and board and infinite paper
I'll key, then delete, than repeat these phrases,
shoving these urges down veins and vessels, resisting for good
to save myself wearing a roster of exhausted faces.
Unable to render material creative and original and new,
resorting to lowly rhymes, replaying Fleetwood Mac: I'll let you run
in the shadows. Damn your love, damn your lies.
Without you and I, me and you could have a lot more fun.
Pray tell, do you ever feel ridiculous playing this game we play?
Counting the dots in that Seurat painting, dots never connecting?
Un dimanche après-midi à l'Île de la Grande Jatte-
shall we, may we, when we, can we, start and end this thing?
1884 was a lifetime ago. I won't expect my having any effect,
rather closure will have me regaining composure, abstracts lost
for a century are easy to fixate upon and hard to quit
despite warnings, health risks, and other means of accost.
With hesitant hands I write stanza after stanza- after stanza.
I tell myself that I am strong/that I do not love you;
then sit back and stare at the page, wondering
how these deliberate words read both false and true.