He wants to be
a brutal old man,
an aggressive old man,
as dull, as brutal
as the emptiness around him,
He doesn't want compromise,
nor to be ever nice
to anyone. Just mean,
and final in his brutal,
his total, rejection of it all.
He tried the sweet,
the gentle, the “oh,
let's hold hands together”
and it was awful,
dull, brutally inconsequential.
Now he'll stand on
Here, Creeley is referencing this man’s past relationships and the lengths he has gone to keep these relationships. 
 Are the sweet and gentle vapid?
Self-Portrait