Poetry: 'Narkissos'

Art: Narcissus (1597-1599)
By Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio

In the spirit of "celebrating the role of
correspondence in poets’ lives and
work," as the Academy of American
Poets is doing for National Poetry
Month, I've written the following
poem in the form of a letter:

Sweet Listless Lot,

Solipsistic thoughts, which disavow the know. I’d have you here for wine & fare, but you’d prefer to remain there; where naught exist nor grow. I fret, this setting is for two. And though you fast, beset by love, you think there less than few. Your eyes, a vacant well; a vast and empty space, across which stars are strewn. The table I’ve prepared for us is Siskiyou in bloom; painted in the Sun’s embrace, at night framed by the Moon. Sinews of your somber state are prison to us both. No warden, but belief. No pardon, only grief. Here Mourning Bourn, where lonely spawn and swim downstream to feed.

What then am I to you? A figment? A bedraggled hue. “Nothing”—this for sure. For either you and I exist or this a narcissistic fit; one stirred, and one secure. Belief as Maldives sea: sunken treasure, coveted, precious clarity. To find such understanding, but to have lost all sight of me. So, I bereft, ‘til death do part, to love one such as you; unless retained, as day did start, a ‘know’ thought disavowed. The unrequited love I yearn, and solipsistic thoughts I scorn, a conflagration of the soul, a spirit here in pitch-and-roll, and burning ‘midst the storm. A maelstrom of mind so torn, forthwith this memo born!

So then, to whom is this addressed? So listless have I been?! A self-absorbed abhorrent ford across which thoughts have swept. To me this letter’s sent; my deplorable ascent. I've wept this pool. A lonely fool. How long here have I dreamt?

Resignedly,
The Spent