Failed Visionary
I do not know the meaning of hard work.
But I know what it means to adhere
to a schedule of diligent work-avoidance
as if it were a regular job: a strict routine
of wandering around and lying down
and brooding over wasted time.
I don’t like to mix business
with anything, least of all pleasure.
If any further proof were needed that nothing is beneath me:
http://artillerymag.com/tottenham-corner/?utm_source=Newsletter+2013%2F07%2F18%2C+9%3A02+
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.
John Tottenham 