20151107 (mistakes)

I haven’t read the bible through

Nor all of Shakespeare’s plays

And sonnets not the eighty greatest

Books of American literature I’ve

Read Things Fall Apart don’t 

Remember anything of The Stranger

Nothing by Faulkner Hemingway

The Great Gatsby a couple of times

I did ok in differential calculus but

Took an incomplete in integral for

Someone who had sparkled in

High school math I hit a brick

Wall in college I don’t remember

Developing anything better than

A slick facility with science but

Once I got beyond the popular

Level I fumbled like the rest

Looking briefly at a self help

Book I was given as a beginning

Freshman in college titled How to

Study I felt a nagging nostalgia

For those student days and a wish

To return to that time to do it all

Over this time the right way I

Think everybody would like to

Undo mistakes make again the 

Effort this time with enough

Concentration to right the wrong

Make up for lost opportunities

Wasted time unnecessary confusion

This time perform with clear

Purpose dedication seriousness

As if to infuse the struggling

Young mind with the stability

Solidity maturity of our present

Life if indeed we are more mature

More able to balance thrill and

Value in anything as a child I had

A flair for art third grade crayon

Portraits high school pencil sketches

Some of which my executors will

Find if they prove at all thorough

Going back though is a waste of

Wish better to hunger for something

Today non-leaking roof sounder

Body which is to say had we gone

Back we would either go astray

Again as badly as the first or

Create new errors to untangle

They lied of course when they said

You can be anything you want to

Be follow that dream Elvis sang

Life interrupts with daylight and

Crowing cocks cats who have 

Learned to lick you on the lips to

Tear you out of dreams and 

Refill the bowl of cat food 

Better to use the remaining

Strength and will for today’s trials

There’s not a single thing to do

About the past except to learn

To apologize to seek forgiveness

To make amends for these I wish I

Could and then forget 

Move on

c. J.S.Manista, 2015