Self-portrait at Sixty-five
Mental notes
flutter like confetti
down a chasm
made from facing rows
of stone and glass.
What once had importance
now descends in flurries
onto giant apparitions
anchored by cables
thin as thread.
Marching tunes,
only vaguely motivational,
are barely audible,
as if coming from headphones
set upon a desk.
The shrill whistle
that trills no louder
than an insect
leads a formation
of red and gold
through pointillistic bits of paper.
Caught in a blizzard,
a black car carefully follows them,
tiny figures within waving.
All the day’s details
swirl about--
they blur at first,
then vanish in a crowd.
Circa 21st Century
At the intersection
of sci-fi and anthropology
traffic comes and goes,
much like the mind’s crosswinds.
Small blinking-red beacons
warn planes and copters from the tops of towers,
a wasp wades at the edge
of a pool of melted ice cream.
Somewhere between the unforeseeable
and all we tow in hindsight,
there’s this infinitely rich moment
to metabolize.
Bionote
Fred Alsberg has published poems in Greensboro Review, Louisiana Review, Southeast Review, Rhino, and Oklahoma Today. He has performed his poems accompanied by electric piano.
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