On Character, Consciousness, Perception, Point Of View, The Failure To Communicate And Geography Poem by Dennis Ryan

Wednesday morning, December 26 at 9: 10 a.m.; Thursday evening, December 27 at 6: 22 p.m.; Friday morning, December 28 at 7: 57 a.m.; Saturday morning,
December 29 at 11: 51 a.m.; Sunday morning, December 30 at 10: 37 a.m.;
Tuesday morning, January 1,2019 at 11: 45 a.m.; Thursday morning, January 3,2019 at 10: 22 a.m.

You had pressed your nose,
the right side of your face

against the window glass,
your head curving outward

into space—you were older
than your years yet youthful,

kind, beautiful.You liked me:
used me.You were too fond

of yourself, your own vanity—
you told me so—so you used me.

Self-aware yet small-minded—
you guided yourself too much

by what is useful rather than
by what is noble: so the house.

Though life was a bad business,
you were out for gain—you had

gained me—and that's all that
mattered.I understand now.

I saw you for who you are,
this complex mix, someone

who knew herself, knew what
she wanted, but could not bear

to acknowledge certain actions—
neither to herself nor to me.

Consciousness is what it is:
it does not judge, it does not

reflect or self-reflect—morality
is an after affect.In public,

you were against war, against
injustice, you spoke of nobility,

but in secret, like almost everyone,
you preferred your advantage—

you showed me this secret
side of your heart too often,

and I proved much too discerning—
the truth mattered, but perhaps

only to me.Thereafter, privately,
I tried to get you to admit that

you had lied and manipulated me,
but my efforts were useless—

you are who you are.(Had I
gone too far?) Even now,

I struggle to write these things,
but I have thought long about it,

thought these things through,
and need write them—if only

to set the recordstraight
for myself, from my viewpoint;

I lacked the confidence before.
(Vide Aristotle The Rhetoric, Book II,

Chapters 13 & 23 on human character,
elders, and lines of positive proofs.)

I don't dislike or hate you;
It's just the opposite— I don't

regret one minute of the time
I spent with you.I strive to see

things more clearly, fail to
do so.I read somewhere that

nothing is more difficult to get
into perspective than the present;

while true, Nothing is more difficult
to get into perspective than the past

in the present moment.Let's talk
about this, shall we?Oh, I forgot...

you don't talk to me anymore—
this failure to communicate

drives this poem.(It took reading
another poet, only minutes ago,

to finally make sense to me.
I'm all about books.All in—

this failure. You can't live in
a library, or in a museum either,

for that matter.Sooner or later,
you gotta go home—) As I write,

in the background, there are sounds
in a language I don't understand,

but the context is clear: the tones
and pitches of the actors' voices

in dialog: a comedy sketch.
But even as they communicate,

I sense a deep-seated insecurity
in their utterances, the speakers

situated between giants:
China and Japan. の間に