I see
One year roll by me, reflected in
The shards of the mirror, and the shards of my lover,
And I think what it means, to be a man –
To be crude and hirsute, to be
selfish and unwise;
To play out our lives in the shadows, away from the rays
of our Muse, who is lost, and of our God, who is far.
And even though verse was man's for so long, and God -
God was a man's game; and truth, and wisdom, why they were male -
Men seek the flame, but are burnt upon contact;
it boils what we pour, it turns to ash what we allow near –
it lies above, beyond, behind, but never in
what we create.
And I see in the mirror, that my own face is not poetry
and my scars are stupidity, and the flame
in my eyes is under threat - my vanity
hanging over it, like an executioner's axe.
And I think yes, men more often seek it,
through poetry and power and all manner of lies -
and for their trouble, the broken hearts of the poets
are an eternal thread throughout time.
All the beauty and serenity of the pen, its fleeting grace
captured, besmirched, flung down, quivering onto the page,
where it can only die.
The poets despair:
that while they sometimes see it, only women
truly live it.