Loneliness, Ecstacy, Desire, Greed

I have been wading through old notebooks.
2 years ago to the day, a younger version of myself wrote definitions for a poetry class:


Loneliness

The net
which once held crowded fish
withdraws
its sinews
unimpeded by the water
the mesh slides through
and strand by strand
the drips fall back
with no way to grasp
and no way to see beyond the waves
And the abruptly gutted sea
longs for the shadows of fishes



Ecstacy

flying past the Blue Bridge
THE SUN
is multiplied by
dynamic mosaic ripples
into thousands
of multicolored
blinding diamonds


Desire

The quivering nose
of a dog
at the end
of a leash
pulled taut


Greed

a sickness
for which the desired cure
makes plain the diagnosis
a sickness
which is, in itself,
a side effect
when the cure is ineffective
a sickness
for which there are never
enough spoonfulls of sugar
to keep the medicine
down