Failed Visionary
Am I empty at the core or just around the edges?
Are there riches therein? I wouldn’t know.
I’m weighed down in a warm white glow,
crushing the stark yellow dullness of the day
into dust, statically and statelessly drifting
through this haze of rust. Riding the waves
of lostness across the landscape of a desk,
into the bulwark of a threadbare curtain.
I have mixed feelings about death.
It seems like the sensible option,
and it would certainly make a nice change.
On the other hand, I have some concerns
about incompetence and pain…
For years I have tarried, secure
in the notion that all this luxuriating
in vicarious decay served some sort of purpose. Until
it became apparent that this extended arid preamble
had turned terminal, squashing any prospect
of fecundity. Fading without ever having flourished:
a dream unwinding, grinding
to a standstill.
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.
Further proof that nothing is beneath me.
New column up at Artillery: Tottenham Corner.
Pass the salt… http://artillerymag.com/tottenham-corner-3/
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 have spent my entire life
preparing to do something
that I am never going to do.
I thought that accumulating
all this learning and experience
might result in something: a body of work…
or a body. While neglecting to take into account
that I might actually have to do something to achieve that end.
An Acquired Taste that’s for Everybody
These two works of fine poetic literature available from Amazon, among other places:
THE INERTIA VARIATIONS
The fruit of many fruitless years. 126 eight-line poems on the subject of work-avoidance, failure and indolence:
http://www.amazon.com/Inertia-Variations-Updated-2010/dp/0971997799/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1369175413&sr=1-1&keywords=inertia+variations
ANTIEPITHALAMIA & OTHER POEMS OF REGRET AND RESENTMENT
A sequence of mean-spirited love poems with particular respect paid to the institution of marriage. Dispiriting observations, felicitously expressed. A tonic to those of us who are not blissfully content in work and love.
http://www.amazon.com/Antiepithalamia-Regret-Resentment-Success-Failure/dp/0985508523/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1369176426&sr=1-1&keywords=antiepithalamia
John Tottenham 