What I have inflicted on life and
its responsorials and reprisals
on me have proven that regrets
teach – if you do the homework
things, events once inexplicable
are simply lessons learned in an
evolving matriculation; tuition
deferred, knowledge incurred,
debits carried forward, erased
Unlike my youthful self
I am far less Dylanesque, unless
positively traveling Fourth Street
Such is life, such am I – and you?
in spite of failures and shortfalls,
perhaps because of them,
subsequent successes make me
realize it has all come so swiftly,
sweetly and simply by way of
perspiration born of desperation
and plain dumb luck
To be sure of life is to know that
failure equals inspiration,
while youthful triumph is just rote
mathematical miscalculation.
Success (survival) is startling news.
Here I stand, having purged the
regrets, how-comes and what-ifs;
sweetly savoring varietal
demons as muse.
Ponderable polemics, poetic 