Poems

I.

Life story

Sometime around the year

2012

Or 2013

I realized that

I was not nearly as good
As I had thought –

That I did things too

That hurt other people

That were selfish and stupid, and that I did them

A fair amount of the time.

Sometime around the year

2016

Or 2017

I realized that

While all that was true, and

Not at all to be gainsaid

There are nonetheless

Some out there

Who are worse.

II.

I wonder sometimes –

Not that I’ve done so very well for myself –

But I wonder, I say –

 would I have gotten

Even half as far as I have

If it were not

For these dimples?

III.

I used to be sick

So sick I couldn’t stand

Then, one day, I guess,

I got better –

Better to say –

The world got sick with me

 Crazy as I had been, it

 Got crazier

So that now

God help me,

I’m thriving!

Oh my.

How much stranger

 everything turned out to be

Than we were expecting…

IV.

Happiness is such a sneaking thing

Clutched to one’s chest one fears most mightily

That it will be discovered

And what inspires the feeling of shame

And fear – is not that they will hate you for it

But that they are right to do so!