I Don'T Want Anyone I Know To Read My Poems Poem by Shalom Freedman

I DON’T WANT ANYONE I KNOW TO READ MY POEMS

I don’t want anyone I know to read my poems
My poems are about what I feel inside
It would be embarrassing for me to know
That people I know know what I feel
Especially as so much of it
Is completely different from the social pretence
Of a smiling quiet contented old man
I try to present most of the time-
I think not to publish my poems at all
But Writing is the purpose of my life-
To feel Meaningless all the time
Is difficult
So I write
And hope the words will be seen
As metaphor from some fictional persona
‘I am not myself and myself is not me either’
But it is false,
I am only as real as the feelings of my poems
However small however trite however unremarkable
They are me
As this is me
‘Here I sit and write
I can do no other.’
Or so I say for now.