June 2017
Perry S. Nicholas
perrynicholas53@aol.com​
I am an Associate Professor of English at Erie Community College North in Buffalo, N.Y.  I have 5 books, 4 chapbooks, and 1 CD of poetry. I am married to Maria Sebastian, a well-known singer/songwriter, and we perform our poetry and music together at many venues in the WNY area. For more information please visit my website: www.perrynicholas.com

Like Trying to Explain
 
 
It’s like trying to explain
how blue the Aegean is to someone
who has never been farther east
than Rochester, or economy to a poet
who goes on one stanza too long.
 
Like wasting a breath on something
that has already expended its last.
 
How can I describe her dated elegance
in curlers, an unruly nightgown,
the stirrings of a generation boiling
under my skin, happy to hate
modern models of love?
 
How hard it is to tell someone
how blue is blue, long too far,
or how my eyes swell with history  
when she steps out of the ‘50s into now.
 
Only I, with my sorry degrees and scribbles,
fail so miserably at explaining this primary lesson. 
©2017 Perry S. Nicholas
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