The Rake (Dissolute Man in Fashionable Society)

In the mirror, the clock ticks
a little slower, the heart beats
delayed. The windows uncover
the desolate, vast heavens of Coleridge’s
dreams

that stretch the imagination until it spins
like a carousel, little eyes
catch the world go’ round and round

while we play like children with memories
of some youth, half conscious. Decisions
spilling into older life, a longing for yesterday,
a carriage on a road of cars

before the seed sprouts and begins to fade the clocks are set
for oblivion; waxing, we, like the moon
covered in craters and stains that
can’t be cleaned can
be covered

in webs of significance*
spin, as if prey
struggling to escape the nets you cast
yesterday, you caught yourself
in the mirror again

down the road the thing I used to be after is
laughing and deceiving me
in the mirror, a river of light
presents to you, yourself

Movement is always connected to
older motions. See with the greater eye
God, rushing, as if the rapids of the river
where everything is flowing, together and apart