Peering dimly through the haze
That beclouds all yesterdays
I try often to appraise
Analyzing phase by phase
All I feel and hear and see
Of the once and former me
Scattered over used to be
Rounded up in reverie
Summers, winters, falls and spring
Songs my heart no longer sings
Wounds that have outlived their stings
Laughter that no longer rings
Coins with which my life was tossed
Ghosts of grand illusions lost
Hopes abandoned in exhaust
Bridges I have finally crossed
Bits of banners once held high
Aspirations left to die
Cases I no longer try
Loves to which I’ve bid good-bye
Laws by which my life was ruled
Lessons by which I’ve been schooled
Lies that failed and some that fooled
All in recollection pooled
Swirling in that misty mix
Fading memory depicts
With its knack for playing tricks
Points in life defy my fix
From impressions brought to mind
What direction can I find
By what plan of any kind
Was my destiny designed?
As I view the evidence
Seeking to sort out some sense
I discover deep, intense
Contradictory arguments
Gleams of gladness, globs of gloom
Leap and lark or lurk and loom
Down the pathway from the womb
Leading to my certain doom
What of pleasure What of pain
What of loss and what of gain
What proved crazy; what was sane?
I lack logic to explain
What of choice and what of chance
Fate as versus happenstance
Lucks’ retreat or bold advance
As the stars and numbers dance?
What of pure coincidence
Oddities and accidents
That defy my best attempts
To make forecasts of events?
I cannot divine what’s due
What this world is coming to
Any better than I knew
Whys for what all I’ve been through
On occasion I wax wise
Puff up and philosophize
But in truth I realize
My life caught me by surprise
It was just the trap I found
As I put my foot to ground
Rubbed my eyes and looking ‘round
Spied the tomb to which I’m bound
Who am I to pick a flaw
In the face of natural law
What conclusions can I draw
From the doubts that nag and gnaw?
Too uncertain to be sure
Unfulfilled and insecure
I stew slowly in the pure
Essence of my soup “de jour”
Little can I claim I know
Only that where I may go
Mounting my peculiar show
Mine’s the one star that must glow
Other churches have their chimes
Other regions have their climes
Other people at all times
Have their reasons and their rhymes
But when all is said and done
As I trip beneath the sun
I remain the only one
With my persons’ race to run
Selfish though it seem to be
From myself I cannot flee
The one person that I see
I can’t live without is me
It is I the clown, the clod
I must push and pull and prod
Through each change, however odd
As I go to meet my God
But the God my heart adores
May not meet the needs of yours
Mine and I have private scores
To be settled in due course
By my private creeds and codes
Pasted ‘long the public roads
Down which I must tote my loads
And establish my abodes
I have looked always for light
That could clearly lead me right
Now and then one flickered bright
Mostly it was dark as night
Often I found faith to pray
Offer thanks to God each day
For what others well might say
“Would have happened anyway”
I have built my faith up strong
Proselytized it loud and long
Celebrated it in song
Never proved it right nor wrong
Yes, incredible but true
Mostly I have muddled through
Doing what I had to do
For what reasons too few knew
Reasons grasped or reasons missed
Reasons too strong to resist
Life seemed always to exist
With an unexpected twist
Mired in this muddle still
With some future left to kill
I pray hell or heaven will
Somehow help me fill my bill
Deep beneath my intellect
Pools of passion still collect
I do battle to project
Stiff as penises erect
From my psyche in a surge
Primal instincts still emerge
So compelling in their urge
That from them I can’t diverge
Animal, I’m made to made
Couple up and copulate
Plant my seed and propagate
(An arrangement I call great)
Male and female feeling good
Manhood within womanhood
Satisfied and understood
Coming into parenthood
Children’s’ lives to guard and guide
Brought a great paternal pride
Plus the struggle to provide
Life supports for which they cried
In my time I have not known
Greater joy than with my own
Vital flesh and blood and bone
Through the years as they have grown
Human being, Man Alive!
Subject to some inner drive
That requires that I survive
And in my own fashion, thrive
Life is often called a “play”
And I see it, too that way
As I go from day to day
After something that may pay
I have chosen for my part
Creating from mind and heart
Works intended to be art
Offered on the culture mart
I have seized the poets pen
Charged into the muses’ den
There to grapple once again
For fresh images of men
I have made my verses heard
Trying by my chosen word
To praise truth in what occurred
And make what seemed false absurd
With my words I won my wife
Taught my children, enjoyed life
And stood fitted out in strife
Better than with gun or knife
But though artist I may be
I do not feel myself free
To reveal the whole of me
Some the world need never see
Deep as is my debt to doubt
Why let all my secrets out
Just to have the public shout
“What is that damned fool about?”
To myself I may confess
Faults and flaws and weaknesses
But the world just has to guess
At the menu in my mess
Better not be too verbose
With opinions I disclose
Let my thoughts be largely those
No one ever hears nor knows
And in close relationship
Best not be too quick to quip
Seeing how a “buttoned lip”
Saved my tongue a many slip
Yet where I detect a taint
Though it’s certain I’m no saint
My heart does not beat too faint
For legitimate complaint
I complain it makes me sick
When my body politic
Is seduced to turn a trick
For some “pimps” who think they’re slick
Politics get out of hand
When in my own native land
I am at the cold command
Of some brutal bully’s band
Like a giant jamming noise
Tyranny blots out, destroys
Access to my artists’ voice
Turns me rebel without choice
I see some who seem to dread
Hearing what needs saying said
No such slave to be mislead
‘Druther be my corpse instead
While I live I’ll have some spine
Down on freedoms’ bottom like
There where only brave men sign
One “John Hancock” will be mine
Long as I reserve a birth
On this spinning Planet Earth
I will not be dealt a dearth
I will stand for all I’m worth
Give me credit, pay me cash
Something that is more than trash
I can spend perhaps or stash
For my offspring when I’m ash
I don’t know why I became
Mixed up in this living game
But I’m playing just the same
For my paltry piece of fame
Up ahead around a bend
Soon or late my game will end
What result ought I intend
From what I have left to spend?
Can I hope to be a sage
Captured on the printed page
Or an actor, center stage
Voicing eloquent outrage?
Will tomorrow still require
That I burn with great desire
Or compel me to retire
As I feebly expire
How much option is left me
To decide my destiny
Just what will my choices be?
I am unfit to foresee
For the future still denies
Vision to my prying eyes
There all I can recognize
Is the past dressed in disguise
Till I’m rung some final gong
I will sing my life’s’ long song
Just as loud and true and strong
As I can before this throng
I will play life as it lays
With a frequent backward gaze
Peering dimly through the haze
That beclouds all yesterdays