Ah, the things that movie quotes bring up! This poem starts with a line from Nagisa Oshima’s Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence…

‘The past…again and again…’

What of it?
What does it do
but remind me of all the mistakes I’ve made?

All the unfulfilled promises
now left wanting
because I now want
what I didn’t allow myself to have
when the chance was mine

No one to blame but mine own

There’s no way I could have known
even though I should have

What else is there to do now
but accept that time has rules
and that no matter what kind of fool I may be
time tells me what to do
not the other way around

(8 December 2015—posted December 9)