Face

I have needed a new face for ten years now.
The old one was stuck, like a mask, with
a frown and a perfect look of misery.
It refused to move like a spoilt child and I
had to make apologies for it endlessly.
I would like a face with a smile, one that

would greet everyone with pleasure and not
some troublesome wight of sorrow. I would
feel complete then, ready to face anything
that might come along. I would not be startled,
I would use my smiling face to smooth things
out, to solve problems.

And everyone who saw it would whisper
that its wearer must be attentive to happiness,
to a delightful life airy and full of joy.
Even at nights when the moon shines bright
on cold nights, the curtains offering no
protection from winds, even on such nights

my smiling face would radiate bliss,
I would become envied by others. I would
sleep each night, smiling, and wake each
morning, smiling, and there would be nothing
to stop me at all from making light of anything
and everything that happens.

Only when I saw you after ten long years
a smiling face seemed such a stupidity.
There was nothing there to smile about,
the old face formed in seconds, the taut
mouth fixed into an altered grimace, the old
excuse.

How quickly things can alter, one moment
a solid resolution to improve, to change
what the past had done, and in another
moment something from the past is forced
into the present and lets develop all the old
events, the old mistakes.

A lifetime of excuses rushes in to meet
you, each mistake detailed for your pleasure,
written huge and bold and bright. Nothing
can alter such events except perhaps
a letting go of the past, private moments
exorcised at last. And what smiling face

can undo such things? But you were gone
in minutes and I had work to do building
a face of contentment, one that would
say to anyone and everyone how pleased
I had become, my smiling face brighter
than any magic, brighter still than God.

---

You

What magic makes you,
what words describe you?
I have fallen into the light
of your image, sunk
in its wonderment,
I have become.

Now with words
that would pray
I sound your name,
let it loose
about me
so that

grievances leave
and are replaced
with sweet promise.
I am the one with
stars now,
the beneficiary

of heaven
loud mouthed
and fashioned
into glee.
I cannot let go,
there has been

too much change.
Everything has altered,
the day,
the night,
the colour of moods
that mellow

in sunlight.
Now with the joy of Theseus
I walk into
a new world
brilliant

as any star
that has heavens
to shine in,
a mirror
of what has now
become pure,

faultless
as a birth.

---

Time

Mutant,
the one thought
that directs
to this point
of age
that says

it's over.
What pills
light you up,
what pills
turn you down?
For seven years

you have turned
your face
away,
distanced yourself
into this being,
the one person

with no need,
no desire,
ambition,
love.
Now it is time,
it has become

time to give up
to the gods
who speak
to you
and direct.
The pills

that light you up,
the pills
that turn you down
can take away
your gods,
manifest

a peace
that has nothing
to do with anything,
just a long unfolding
of a stillness,
a gentle

airing of beliefs.
And in a second
there has been
an ending whose
beginning
seven years back

twisted into
foreign shape
something usual
until this point
of age
that has become time,

now a lighting up
and turning down
of sallow thoughts
that hang
like devils
to be exorcised.