I used to be lost.
Now I’m just stuck.
November 21, 2012
Living Too Late
It is pointless to have reached this point:
this summit of finely seasoned staleness.
The callow negativism of youth matured to a dubious vintage,
with a voluptuous bouquet of regret
and a lingering aftertaste of self-disgust.
November 10, 2012
REGRETS
I don’t understand people
who claim that they have no regrets in life;
who insist, out of gratitude, pride or ignorance,
that they wouldn’t want to change a thing.
My life is a raging river of regret, flowing
into a sea of shame. There is very little
I wouldn’t do differently if given a second chance.
I always knew I’d end up feeling this way:
It was a setup. Regret was something
I worked towards, something I felt I had to earn.
And now, naturally, I regret that too.
November 5, 2012
In Honor of Election Day: Three Inertia Variations
FEELINGS
I may as well face the fact
That I am no longer capable
Of doing what I once believed
I was capable of doing.
Not that I had any reason to assume
That I was capable of it.
It was just a feeling that I had.
And now I have a different feeling.
ANOTHER DAY
Take some initiative…
Do something with your life:
I get up from the sofa,
Walk across to the table
And write these words
Down on a scrap of paper.
Then I return to the sofa and
Fall asleep.
A WEDNESDAY IN AUGUST
I ask little enough of myself,
And I cannot even accomplish that much.
I would rather sit here, obsessively undriven,
Doing as close to nothing as is humanly possible.
Entertaining, occasionally, a pang of grief
Or grievance. Fixing on a stray regret or a memory
Drifting like dust in sunlight, or
A shadow falling over a shadow.
John Tottenham 