The Names

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The Names

There are names 
I need to forget. … great opening. I actually like the enjambment. The second line isn’t predictable, so works well 

I’m teaching myself to isolate
them, to detach them 
from their personae,
turn them into artifacts
I can no longer interpret.

   …: while I love this strophe, the three “thems” and two “tos” offend. Perhaps “isolate them / clean from their personae” or something like thst would make it better.

When they appear in my mind
I discourage their masks 
from taking the stage;
their enactments are not helpful,
they turn into a riddle
of imagined moments,
stories I tell myself 
to reprove the present.

….the metaphor is held together well in this. But perhaps enactments…turn into a riddle is slightly tighter without the “are not helpful”?

The present is all there is,
all there will be. These names
obscure and mislead, they
tell me lies I can no longer afford
to believe.  It only remains to be seen
which of them will outlive me
which will be waiting for me
on the other side.


The last sentence is prosaic. “It remains to be seen which of them will outlive me” is both too conversational and too much telling. The first line in this final strophe is great.