`

The masks we wear, to us are given,
assigned to us before our cue.
The choice is ours to reveal or hide-
A grand charade with many a clue.

Would you be this or be you that;
Is it surfaced or is it hidden?
Not all secrets are lies or deceit,
Our view of others we must widen.

The genuine heart will itself reveal
Its spots or stripes are where they're at.
The lot of what we think we see,
provide but circumstantial caveat.

I’m tired
and have no poetry left;
so says Mary and me.
Meanwhile,
Mike and Chris tell me
it’s only a matter of time.
And Toby bleats
“ya gotta start somewhere.”
When I dropped the artistry,
I dropped the philosophy;
the fact is
I don’t even want to hear my own philosophy.
I’m ducking under snowballs
that occasionally shatter in the air
because it is too cold and dry
for them to be formed.
Every now and then
an expert bully packs one,
takes aim
and wallops me in the face.

Fresh crimson runs down my chest.
Lacerations you made
using my own words
turning them towards me,
using them like weapons
sharp as serrated steel.

I can find no way to recover,
you keep slicing into me
over and over again
inverting my emotions,
assigning me
as my own worst enemy.

Mid summer bakes the crispy pines
and stills the deep dark hardwood hollows
as deer quickly acrue their tines.
Evenings are filled by darting swallows.

Here where The South came to its end,
where life moves at a slower pace,
all of the locals still pretend
that Abbeville holds naught but grace.

They act as if he is not there.
They shrug off those gone missing in the fall.
It's almost as if they don't care.
Until the autumn's leaves begin to fall.