Those health promoters always tell me breathe
but I must be uninnervated there
for respiration actions do not seethe
I often not remembering to care.

How to be better brings deluge of hints
to shatter habits and to sweat my sins,
to save my soul from jealousy’s green tints
to calmly know my losses and my wins.

The stage of life will never let me go.
It heats my passions to proclaim I am
but those tomatoes shatter my poor show,
suggesting my decisions are but sham.

We poets even though we splotch our claim
believe our words will find a future fame.

~ Robert Stone, 15 September 2016