Can I be more than this or that?

By James Gering

PROMPT — Who am I today?

I don’t know, I just…can I be more than this or that?

Lover of wife, yes, father of adult sons estranged, yes.

Also vulnerable person at large and first-world privilege

personified. What would the professional self-helper say

here? What would the real-deal do here? Stopping now,

this runaway strand of doubt, yes, yes—too debilitating,

this affliction of a writer. In the making of book people

who wake up and yearn, in shaping their souls, you risk

your own soul. After three score years, my identity ought

to be statue solid, much on show, to show, mantle-piece

piled high with accomplishments, and this is my house

and these the foundations and I would have a canoe if

I cared a jot for canoeing. Sorry, I lied back there about

the mantel-piece and the house. Truth of matter, I own

a pencil—a sliver less of it each day, of me too, really.

I am diarist and poet: unacknowledged dreamer of

worlds, legislator of personal effort, friend to strangers,

master of the throwaway line, and, I repeat, lover of my

darling, who has reciprocated the love every day so far.

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James Gering, based in Washington DC, has two poetry collections to his name, the latest being Tickets to the Fall of Icarus (2023.) James has been awarded various international prizes for his poems and short stories. He welcomes visitors at jamesgering.com.