The Middle Years

Richard Halperin

Faster, says my soul, but it is not my soul
Which says it. The soul knows; the brain is
Only an accoutrement.  George Eliot says
That no tale starts; it has begun long before.

One is always in one’s middle years.
Death cuts the work off short and is  
Is a consolation for the work. Some poets,
Not I, describe after death – a ridiculous

Gorgeous effort, an occupational hazard
Of poets. An ant walks off with a
Technicolor elephant on its back.
What a crumb feels like.

Richard Halperin

Richard W. Halperin's poetry collections are published by Salmon/Cliffs of Moher (four) and by Lapwing/Belfast (sixteen). His work is part of University College Dublin's Irish Poetry Reading Archive. In 2023, Salmon will bring out a Selected and New volume, drawing upon all twenty books and including 25+ new poems.

Issue 28
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