Narcissus

           NARCISSUS

            In this season of the long shadow,
            Of sunsets like rust and discarded lips

            I grow tired of the 
            Self 

            Its abandoned ports, dilapidated wharves,
            Still green waters dense with certainty,
            The wrinkled inlets with their crumbling depositories
            Perched like sleepy vultures on the heights 

            I have tired of 
            Colonial campaigns and 
            Sluggish ceremonies of remembrance, 
            Of ignorance seductive as a plume and
            Sharp as slate

            I am tired 

            More from pride than from disgust,
            From unused limbs at the periphery,
            From all the crowded selves
            Outside that hem me
            Inward, 
            Their urgent succulence of predictable delights,
            The armouries of beauty and forgetfulness

            And you are tiresome too,
            Like me, 
            Your eyes, like mine,
            Your secrets and your promises
            No longer beckoning,
            So sheer the bend of past and
            Overbright the captive stream


            Emanuel E. Garcia
            2014
            www.emanuelegarcia.com