Looking Back
by Edward Mycue
1.
To be young and not know what’s coming
–blurring of focus, burring of your edge
And life’s not poetry now just a kind of verse
Not what is there here: what is not here there
Aging of elbows and bagging of the knees
Calendaring the bitter butter batter banter
Dry barley (pearl), peas, lentils, oatmeal
Walnuts? Milk, eggs, tamales, green soup
Greens (kale?) Brussels sprouts, cucumbers
Let it go big joy like a lost friend in Cairo
Let it go memory of omnivorous figits
Let it all fly away: Max Klinger’s gloves
Are flying out the windows in a fever
Consumption, private pleasure, leisure
Then the simply tourism’s private sphere
I acceded my reach not my overreachings
I grasped my failures of a lengthy history
Learning dying before severing life’s link
Notice the far shore before you reach it
Welcome the far shore before you miss it.
2.
Looking back into the hand mirror it all
Seem so gemütlichkeit, not kitsch but more
The front parlour of that old family place on
Ontario Avenue in Niagara Falls, NY with
The unused Biedermeier furniture that
Waited there for gestures of formality(s).
Memory is also documentation with some
Parts highlighted to such an extent that the
Rest fades away to the back of the turtle
That holds up the universe and our worlds.