NOT ONE SINGLE REGRET

All my words are gone . . .stolen.

Sons and daughters took a few.

But all the others went to those I hardly knew.

Ragamuffins, student gangsters!

One entire generation of middle class fools.

And of course, a priest or two, joined

my twelve Apathetic Apostles.

Those who prospered strangling on the threads

Of what they thought they knew.

Wildly indicting me!

I gave pearls away for instant applause!

For belly laughs from fools and frogs.

Ten thousand volumes of reflections

thrown into that pool of cruelty that is youth.

Gave all of it without right or wrong.

Now . . . . more or less it’s gone.

Sunken into wall to wall carpets,

drying in sanitary bedrooms,

or buried in pre-formed concrete tombs

along the shores of the Potomac.

And if all of it began again

this time I’d play the clam.

Or run deep into the trees

To save my thoughts for

A wayward squirrel or dove.

. . . . . No I wouldn’t.

If somehow I still care,

If I still remember names and wonders,

It’s just because I cannot spit

Out the stardust I saw in a few dozen eyes.

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