I have lay uneasy for three days,<\/p>\n
As not a word of my last poem got written,<\/p>\n
My heart weighs a ton –<\/p>\n
It finds no outlet.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I have consoled my heart<\/p>\n
In a thousand ways,<\/p>\n
Yet its defiance seems immutable,<\/p>\n
Its stance a rubik\u2019s cube puzzle.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I had thought that the last poem<\/p>\n
Would be the easiest to write,<\/p>\n
Where I would pour out my<\/p>\n
Life\u2019s reverence for life.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
But still I must write my last poem<\/p>\n
Before I delete all of them,<\/p>\n
And live with cool grit,<\/p>\n
Waiting for the eternity to settle.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I could go on writing poems<\/p>\n
But it wouldn\u2019t make sense,<\/p>\n
As art needs an audience,<\/p>\n
Without which it is a one-handed clap.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The old grandeur of poetry is dead now,<\/p>\n
As today\u2019s smart find joy<\/p>\n
In direct physical adventures,<\/p>\n
And Wall St. lotteries.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Today poetry is a bum,<\/p>\n
A work of the old fogies,<\/p>\n
Or frail spinsters,<\/p>\n
Or of jobless yo-yo\u2019s.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Oh! the time is out of joint,<\/p>\n
But yet I must finish my last poem,<\/p>\n
Hang my poetry-boots,<\/p>\n
And walk happily toward the horizon.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Suffern, New York, December 23, 2016<\/p>\n