"I have lived in a moment of bliss"

 

I have lived in a moment of bliss in London's daring
spring and imagined in my heart a rising
that I could quench, but must sadly quell,
a subduing of my heart's joy that sprung
the death of my life's deeper love.
What piteousness memory is regret!
Hidden truth veiled in cloaks of jest,
how I detest thee so and loath my cowardice;
for I could have faced conquest and defeat,
yet I turned my back and fell to sleep.

Memory, what pain and pleasure you can bestow,
shifting the moment and touching the soul,
affecting the whims of a man in repentant reflection;
I have let the man I wanted to be pass me by
as I closed my eyes and dreamed what could have been.
Still chance proves itself with every recollection,
with every tugging of a heightened string,
and yet it fades because it is a memory that never was;
it fades because I am a man who never was
possessed of strengths that leapt into arms of truth.

Under the dim light of a foreign street lamp
I moon in appalling silence, retching my judgment
and deciding against myself that what is
is better than what could be and be destroyed;
I have unearthed myself to dig another restless grave.
The pounds weighed lightly on my thought,
that life that I would have lived for free
if only I would have known guarantees of unyielding permanence.
The future holds countless uncertainties and again I faultily think,
better to have what is than to risk what could be and be without.

 

28 Apr 00