JOHNMICHAEL SIMON POETRY

I’m sorry for the wrongs I didn’t do

words only thought, imagined crimes

like those a child when punished hungers to commit

 

I’m sorry for the barbs I didn’t mean

concealed in silence as my inner ear hears you

muttering in quiet your own regrets

 

Perhaps in heat of some unguarded flash

we’ll gaze into each other’s eyes

and wish we hadn’t met

 

Imagination has a power defying truth

as we remember how deluded we once were

listening to slogans from each other’s lips

 

Yearnings, echoes, things we held at bay

yet played upon our minds reminding us of

pop songs, lovers’ arias, operas that didn’t yet exist

 

Forgive me, I’ve become undone with fictions

writing versions of untruths upon our walls

and hoping somehow you would understand

 

That under all imagining, the things that really count

are hidden by the words we didn’t mouth

as desperate I turn away, try not to show

 

the pleading in my eyes

 

Dear heart, tell me now, is it too late

to gather all the words we didn’t say

and throw them in the gutter, or make a bonfire of them

 

turning this night to day?