20151012 (dating game)

When I was young and wrote sonnets

To my dearly beloved I did not foresee

How much life could change once there

Was no one to translate the world from

A waiting room to a place of worship

Devotion solace intimacy purpose I

Did not know how much I was lifted

Though my feet still touched the 

Ground younger certainly more 

Ready to give thanks make gifts

Play the wisdom of loss is a far

Less likable state music color

Food are muted even discovery

Is flatter these all could be products

Of psychotropic meds as I’ve told

Before keeping sorrows in check

You fence in joys age itself drips

Sand in gears it once oiled but

We notice our walk to the grave

Is paradoxically slowed while

At the same time it’s hastened

I’ve tried to find one who could

Rebirth that youth not again 

Mine to be thirty years later the

College girls have complicated

Their lives with their own demons

They were all charming the first

More so than the rest smelled

The best I loved placing my 

Face to her neck and breathing

In fresh flowers though she wore

No perfume I thought her simple

Straightforward guileless story

Sad once told regretted fearful

Of change she knew her limits

Chose the ills she knew desired

No others the second a puzzle

Of enthusiasm and confusion I 

Was warned but I played the fool

How could I know her Scylla and

Charybdis were in cahoots once

Things calmed down it was 

A tedious draining of whatever 

Spirit dared arise I became evil 

James III the play had been

Written long ago the lines

I thought hopeful she traded for 

Treachery even the leaving was 

Way too drawn out the worm that

Ate all the happiness refused to 

Release our insides sealed as it 

Was to our bones the last ah

The last yes the last I swear

You would have thought I 

Had learned was a charmer

Who spun a fantasy so patent a

Child could have warned me

Wasn’t satisfied until like an

Ocean fisherman she felt the 

Prey had swallowed the bait

Coldbloodedly decided enough

For this fish cut the line in

The midst of the chase blew the

Smoke from her pistol grabbed her

Bowie to carve one more notch

On the handle once I’d realized

What was up like the fish with a

Line dangling I rejoiced that I’d 

Gotten away with only the barb

Fixed in my jaw the loss of some

Blood the line would soon wither

The hook rust in the ocean’s salt 

c. J.S.Manista, 2015