Failed Visionary
Immerse yourself in sorrow, rake over pain.
Let the novelty of feeling something
wash through you in purifying waves
again and again. But kindness is unnerving,
tenderness hurts, and empathy
can be an excruciating form of martyrdom.
At the end of the day – when all is unsaid
and undone – you’re better off numb.
At this point it would be impossible
to make up for all the lost time.
I might as well try to settle
for a serviceable desperation,
and strive, at least, for resignation:
the long hard process of resigning myself
to the choices I made
by not making a choice.
In a constant state of choking down bitterness.
Getting it all down in the hope of exhausting it.
Only to find there’s more, it multiplies.
How empty my life would be without it.
What a gaping hole it would leave.
And what could possibly take its place?
That’s a good question…
I’m drawing a blank.
To ‘let go’ of bitterness and resentment:
It’s an interesting concept.
I must try it sometime.
No hurry.
It takes a lot of work
to create the fleeting impression
that everything is all right.
No sooner have I told myself
that I can’t complain
than I plumb a deeper vein
of dissatisfaction.
The occasional hard-won flicker of hope
is hardly worth the effort.
Passing the various stations,
the vicarious stations,
watching the other passengers get off,
without baggage, at the earliest stop –
once they feel they’ve done their time,
but wanting credit for riding it to the end of the line.
For at the terminal, what awaits?
Just a faded ticket, out of date.
Just trying to make a connection: http://www.citylightspodcast.com/success-failure-at-the-odd-fellows-hall-with-stewart-home-jarrett-kobek-and-john-tottenham/
Grooming myself for a career in failure,
I studied with masters.
Then I realized: they were successful.
For how would they otherwise be known?
There is a difference between the failures
of the successful and the failure of true failures.
A matter of sliding scale:
The failures of the successful are celebrated,
broadcast far and wide;
while the failures of failures are obscure,
buried with them when they die.
My attitude towards other people depends entirely
upon whether or not they give me the credit I think I deserve;
and sometimes, even when they do give me enough credit,
I still resent them – especially if they receive more credit
than I think they deserve.
In the latest issue of Gesture magazine:
How dark and wide and wet it was:
pungent in the morning, with steam rising from it.
I held my nose over it, breathed in deeply
and gagged.
A hole, deeper than my love,
awaited you. A shallow hole,
nonetheless.
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.
John Tottenham 