Sharp Shooter

An hour spent writing.
No one will read it, this journal
of secret loves and rabid angers.
It is the altar of emotions,
the place where I lay my soul
for God to read in his spare time,
not practice, because practice assumes
I am getting better at something.
No, these pages are my youngest moments
of madness and dementia, my sifting for gold,
my purge.

I spend more time still than scribbling.
Staring into space. Seeking the ghosts
that once had substance and power,
and now live, little passive-aggressive
beasties that they are, playing hide and seek
like Colonial soldiers, shooting from behind trees
that were planted for your protection.

These words that no one reads
are my shooting back,
an innocent turned sharpshooter.

About this poem.

I spend more time writing in my journal and writing poetry than most people. For better or worse, it is my therapy. This poem has elements of my journal writing, of my therapy years, and of the back of comic books when I was a child. Poetry is never about one thing, even when it looks like it is,

The picture was taken at Clermont, one of the Hudson River mansions from the Gilded Age.

Tom