Sir Ego
By Odin Roark

Ego caught itself
standing before the looking glass on vow-renewal day,
a joyous and not so joyous reunion with the past
its drifting shoreline still eluding navigation.

Washed up on the slime slick mudflats
were strangled sinews of seasoned synaptic weeds
running rampant webs through the rusty infatuational un-rewards,
remembering rotted prophylactics of a minds’ vulnerabilities
succumbing to protected pleasure
unaware withering senility,
time’s anxious progress,
waited on the shore.

An ocean of reflections once echoed youth,
now but capping shards of broken mirrors
groveling about remembered antiquity,
while wedged beneath the broken buoys of balance,
lost on oh so many impulsive bearings,
rests the fractured shells and sand from mistakes’ endless storms. 

Try as it might in its momentary repose to project a sparkle here,
perhaps a washed up treasure there,
the gray-mossed skeleton that once filled swimming trunks in paradise,
now only stares beyond the fractious reflection to the stars beyond reach.

Such tenacity, this.
poised for yet another go,
where more highs will crest.
more lows will lull.
more ebbs and tides will confuse,
such is being the trickster
known as Sir Ego.