Untitled

I am a fake and a fraud
A waxing intellectual. Rattling
Off mindless prattle
Perplexing
The ignorant. Impressing
The naive

I am a charlatan and a hack
Scribbling amateurish prose
Upon sheets of dull
White paper. My words
Reflecting

What? Characterization
Of emotion? Measure of event?
My chest expands at adoration. Secretly
Guarding insecurity. Dwelling
Deep within my mind

I am no Sexton or Plath or Lowell
My lyric yearn for Longfellow
O to truly feel
As they. To see a world
Though eyes of passion
Break free of binding pragmatism
Venture out of concrete
The world of real
Into a world of feeling
Expression and experience

I don’t desire your praise
My experience can’t spawn
Greatness. I have no pain

Copyright © 2000 by Jake Olden Shy

Pickett’s Charge

Across a mile of open field
To the circle of trees beyond
Lee’s ill-fated operation
To death the men respond

General Pickett is the man selected
To lead this massive attack
With electric confidence he is certain
The Union lines he’ll crack

Thirteen thousand massed atop
The Seminary Ridge
Abreast the men begin to march
The long distance to abridge

Union soldiers dug-in deep
Watch the men approach
Nine brigades at route step march
Cannons answer the encroach

Canister replaced the solid shot
As Confederate soldiers near
Iron balls ripped through the lines
The battle raged austere

The march now becomes a run
Men charge with a Rebel Yell
Union muskets open fire
The advance is soon repelled

One commander made the breech
At a place now called the Angle
Lo Armistead broke through the line
Overwhelmed his effort strangled

For a brief tremendous moment
The Confederate colors flew
With Armistead’s men killed or captured
The remaining soon withdrew

Lee could not believe his eyes
Has God turned his face away?
Eight thousand men he’d sent to die
On that fateful day

Still, one man will be remembered
For the orders he discharged
The failure high upon the ridge
Will be known as Pickett’s Charge

Copyright © 2000 by Jake Olden Shy

The Other

I see within the mirror,
a glass representation of myself,
identical eyes staring back at me.
What secrets are revealed
in that reflection?
Can I truly know myself?
Is what I see mirrored
in the minds and hearts
of those around me?
or am I considered differently?

I am known by the other
He knows me in a way I can
never know myself;
in a moments evaluation
he pronounces an instantaneous
judgment of who I am.
In a flash I am reduced
to an impression; a supposition
that is reality to the mind that
owns the thought.
I am a slave to that image
if I have no further contact
with the other.

Gazing on my reflection
in the mirror, can I truly know
something of that image
unknown now to me?
Can I see what others see?
Can I be the other?

Copyright © 1999 by Jake Olden Shy