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Out of My Skin
Monarch
A Matter of Scale

Heat Wave
Poet and Pet
Awakening
Rebirth

A Reasonable Life

Snapshots 2006
Haikus
Hush and Listen
Faces
Lizard Thoughts
Thunder
White Rose
Mother of the World
Finally

Poems 2005 —
Passion & Discontent
Absence
Blind
Dance
Dry
The Wake of Disaster

Evening
Mama's Tears
Nude
Old Furniture
Pertoglyphs

Rest
Saved
Sounds of an Empty Promise
Entertainment
Sycamores
Three Quarters
Vientos del Mediterráneo
Weavings

Battle
Giving In

Poems 2004
The Dissappearance of Lao Tsu
Nameless Beauty
Commuting
Memory Game
Every Little Thing Counts
Landscapes of Yo Yo Ma's Brazil
Miles (to Miles Davis)
The Colors of Piazzolla's Tango

War and Peace
Making Friends
Old Glory
Kabul Update
Take Heart
March Madness

Poems 2003
Johnny Cash
Between Heartbeats
"Naked Poetry"
Sunflower Sonnet No. 1.5

New York City
My NYC is not your NYC
SanitationWorker, NYC
Gentrification
Passing By
Belly-button Renaissance
West Chelsea

Poems 2002
Crisis
Finding Each Other
Kindred Spirits
Meteor
To Our Youth
At Sunset
Questions
Hollyhock
Holland in Winter

On Society
Mirrors
McKinney X-Tex
Lady Liberty
Making Friends
Old Glory
Walking

Life's Lessons
Child's Life
Crashing Surf
In Search of the Unknown
Love at First Sight
Holding Hands
Grandpa's Tools

Musings
First Snow
Impressionism
Anonymous
Downcast Eyes
Sagrada Familia

In France
French Gardens
Air Show
Cell Phones 01-04

Churches
Lovers in the Castle


 

 

 

 

Mirrors

Narcissus
was not dissatisfied
with his reflection.
He had no mirrors
no magazines
no Kodak moments
no TV's or movies
to use as measures.
Only myths and gods
with tragic flaws
describing the standard
of beauty
of character
of duty and devotion
of sacrifice and adulation
for sources of inspiration.

Modern man, too, has myths,
the ones that say,
"You do not measure up."
In today's world even Narcissus
would be plagued
by self-doubt
by self-criticism
by longings unfulfilled.
Today's Narcissus
searches for his reflection
in daily rituals before mirrors
trying to create through symbols
in catalogue collages
who he feels he really is
projecting to the world
the myth of his reality.

Take away the mirrors,
the reflecting windows of shops
and the self will be sought
in the mirrors of the eyes
of all we contact.
Through our relationships
our obsession
with form may diminish.
In a world without mirrors
we become happy or sad
optimistic or pessimistic
confident or timid
by how others
respond to us.
We have the power
to create our reflections.

Our self-image
is not a shell
decorated
like an Easter egg
but the life inside
seeking to break out,
our attitude
not the form we make up.
We do not exist
as a reflection
in a stagnant pool
or in a fragile glass
separate from others.
We find our true image
in the gestures and glances
of the people in our life.

Our daily routine
defines us.
The way we are treated
is the book of our mythology.
Our story is intricately entwined
with the stories of others.
Our image is our authorship
in the stories of others.
Seeing ourselves
in others' stories,
in the streets of our
wanderings,
in our impact on
their happiness,
we find the clues
to our identity.

We face the mirrors with prejudice,
our symbols with doubt,
seeing in our reflection
a stranger of whom
we may not approve
imitating a myth
with which
we never quite measure up.
In others' stories
we still may be
a character of whom
we do not approve,
but we may alter our image
and change the outcome
by the power
to create our self.

Freedom from reflections
is not to be attached
to the symbolism of the form.
In a world with no mirrors
we cannot love our self
if we do not see a self
that we love reflected back
in the faces and actions of others.
The trap Narcissus laid
was that he fell in love
with his own reflection
and forgetting his duties
to the gods
he lost the inner power
to make his life a beauty
for others.

© 2001 Richard Sidy

 

© 2002 Monique Sidy

© 2002 SNS Press
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