Just Not You

The game board is empty.
No pieces. No markers, dice or spinners.
You’d just as soon not play.
It is, some say, a flaw in character,
and well it might be,
but I have no need to win or lose,
happy to simply do the best I can
in the few things I think are important.

Still, the gameboard is a nice decoration
even if it is not much of a motivator.
A nice picture of the past and a reminder
of how much of the world plays,
just not you.

About this poem

Inspired by someone playing some passive-aggressive games with me, and losing patience because I don’t play. Or it could be about board games, which I will play to be polite, but without enthusiasm. Poetry is never about one thing.

The truth is I just wrote the poem because I liked the picture, which was taken at Clermont, one of the Hudson River Mansions near Rhinebeck, NY.

Tom