Old Poets

Your words

slide past me,

dance beyond me,

tease at the edges of my imagination

before disappearing from the pages of my mind.

I see ages in your eyes

and pain in your hearts.

Your words are old, twisted, ugly.

A close-up photograph,

stark, raw, unedited --

I want to tell you to stop!

and paint me a picture instead,

an idyll of blue skies and bright stars.