I Cannot What It Is Poem by johannes lewinsky

I cannot what it is
What it is assails me
This news assails
That he who i didn't

And couldn't
who wouldn't
who and he did
held most of every

in contempt who sneered and had
no tolerance for any but his own
strong and unassailable
predilections was wounded

wounded in the softest part of him who can forget

the evening came he showed
what he wouldn't want any but must
in spite of himself out where he was most
vulnerable show what he was and therein
bound us bound us ever after to him

yet couldn't and wouldn't
relinquish what he had and was
tormented by his own
inability and ultimately
incapacity

i wish i could
i would if i could
distil just an ounce
of what he had and was
out from the last vestiges of him
to carry around with me hereafter and remember
here was a man more than any of you who plague me still
who did and said what he had to regardless and was supremely

unconcerned
and didn't couldn't and wouldn't
kow tow to any

which is the only hallmark
for a man worth having

you were a part of my personal history a part albeit
unsought unexpected but a part nevertheless

and i have seen so many
fall by the wayside tired finally out
out of life and credit

each one of whom blazoned
you more than any
because maverick extreme
and entirely unregulated