duality or the struggle of a Capricorn reformed

I am my age

but not

I have immense energy

but don’t 

There’s room in my life for love

but there really isn’t 

I’m too smart for my own good,

but kinda dumb on occasion 

And if it confuses some people?

Well, it confuses me more.

looking deeper looking past

there’s no getting around this

Portugal - at least where I live now - 

has seen better days

at first I thought it wild, simply 

unkempt in a historic sense: 

sitting in chipped tile bench

in a park established a

century and a half past

I was left to wonder what

grandeur the city once knew 

but newness, idealization 

a sense of wonder 

has given way to daily life

the derelict homes graffitied poorly

walls streaked with damp 

paths overgrown and randomly kept

broken benches never fixed

broken lights never lit

bins overflowing 

litter in the streets

in the greenway along

the Medieval wall where I walk

daily 

bright ideas established 

never maintained 

a lacking 

of pride in work unfinished 

and a mix of happy angry people 

and clothes that never quite dry

existing is a chore

I think I forgot to enjoy my life 

in hindsight

I would go back there

to my forties to

my thirties, my twenties 

most especially my teens 

in hindsight 

I would find ways 

to care less

frame of reference

my

frame of reference 

exists

in a different country 

in a different state

of mind;

logic

doesn’t exist

here

night and day

 two streets over

my apartment off Largo dos Penedos

on the second floor 

is dry; there’s no constant barrage 

of black flies

my towel dries overnight 

alone is not lonely

after you

I was never good 

with another body

in my bed

sleeping