Regret is a bastard, that smarts as a reflected
sun in the eyes, grinning wet saliva sucking, like,
glowing in a fold of your brain, singing a memory
through grey matter, you close your eyes tight,
“Eric,” you call silently to the wind, “I’m sorry”
mouthing an apology, and he’s not even here
but it’s the best he’ll get, because there’s a voice
in me that is a question mark, calling shame
as it opens my eyes, “I’m sorry, Scott,” I say aloud
because I really did like you, and I would’ve
hung out more often, really I would, but
the myriad of reasons are pointless,
I could’ve pushed past, it is no excuse
for any callous laughter I may have joined
in or created, I was no hero when I was young.
However, in the long view, there were worse
infinitely than I was, I incarnate not just wrath
or a ripping spite, never achieving true big shot
status, which is all that matters in the sandbox,
construction sites and board rooms, quien es mas
macho man, so raise a saber get to death
dealing, cruelty is conflict fungus, growing
within the wines of warriors and refugees
alike, so don’t forget how awful it was, to see simple
justice, because it doesn’t exist in the world
you know, but guidelines exist you’re glad
to know about, like the categorical imperative,
and even with the example, I say my neighbor
had it coming, shouldn’ta been talkin’ shit,
for we all must igloo, humanity seems a torture
storm, grade school is only the beginning.
Is a lesson therein, or herein depending
on which of us is talking, is the lesson
of caution, nihilism, or cautious nihilism,
like a life-art suicide, Harold with a backbone
would’ve made for a short movie, though,
also love is real, glowing technocolor
in the trenches, because even camaraderie
makes life seem like living, for worth it
shines behind clouds, drying us all together
on an upward slope, regret burning
paper puppets in the sky, on the page
and the desk in the desert, because it is lonely
business to recount my wrongs, but worth
it, I suppose, if people know that I’ve tried
at least, this I suppose is not nothing.