In Your Eyes...For You Poem by r james sterzinger

When I see myself through your eyes
I see nothing in myself worthy of redemption
Nothing to save, nothing to be delivered.

On those days the poems don't come.
I roll over in bed
I sleep late
I put the movie on the tube
I sleep through it
I want no inspiration
None.

On those days
I turn on Doctor Zhivago
For the fiftieth time.
I know the outcome
Omar will have a heart attack
Julie will go beautifully to the gulag
Stieger will pawn it all.

My darkness is your darkness.
You like to wrap me in it.
Then the poems
That you don't understand
That you don't like
That get in the way
Don't come.

The branches on the trees are gray
They drip of gray
The rays of the sun give a gray light
I think of curses
I think of your mannerisms
They become ticks
Seconds on the clock
They rinse the day away like rain

You always need to win
You always do
Don't you.

Somehow it will all trickle into
My fault
And run down the eaves
And into the manholes
Forming rivers of poems
That I will never write.