All I Have Has Been Reduced To Simple Lines Poem by Shalom Freedman

All I have has been reduced to simple lines
Small poems
I seem capable of nothing else anymore
Old age contracts the mind and the power of concentration
Small is all
Little lines my lifeline
And yet in me the yearning
For some greater adventure
Some deeper challenge
Some longer meaning
I have failed now for more than ten years
I will fail probably to the end of my life
Small confessional lines like these
Often without poetic complication and contradiction
Simple stuff
Is all I have-
Unable to be what I would be
The story of my life in writing-