Ah yes
-----Original Message-----
From: Poetryetc: poetry and poetics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Kenneth Wolman
Sent: 10 September 2014 15:50
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Maybe a snap?
I don't even try to define them anymore, just that it's very
weird-feeling. A la recherche de temps perdu or something like that.
OLD GIRLFRIEND, SO LONG AGO, MET AGAIN
The camera in my head is broken
so you've been flash-frozen,
the time is not out of joint,
simply then snapped into place perpetual.
Flash-frozen, instant coffee, the piece of meat
you were back then, to me and to yourself.
"I can't love anyone," you told me,
"but you can fuck me anyway."
I could and did and it was ashes,
we both fell down, dessicated.
But today, passing on the street,
I almost did not know you.
How many years?
I'd pinch you to be sure that
this is not a dream, but
you'd probably call the cops.
Gone beyond 1968 you see me,
and I remember that part
without memory of sensation.
It's my broken camera.
I should have added
50 years to your face,
grayed your hair, given you
extra pounds and maybe
even stretch marks.
But then I'd have to re-vision me,
look anew, look now, at what I have become.
Vanity remains unchanged, but sadness grows,
a nasty garden of withered regrets,
of forgetting even what I've remembered.
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