Trading Inertia verses with Matt Johnson (10/17):
September 1, 2018
Say You Love Me
“I love you,” she says,
and my heart sinks.
Knowing what is required of me,
I attempt to reciprocate.
But it’s a struggle,
the words won’t take shape.
No other phrase is so hard to articulate;
no other sentiment is voiced so apprehensively.
I could be honest and say: I love you
but almost everything about you annoys me…
But somehow
those three precious, perilous syllables
are squeezed out, squeamishly:
“Isle… of you.”
It never sounds right when I say it,
but I say it
to put her at ease,
because what you get out of it,
temporarily,
is peace.
April 9, 2018
Soar Into a Rosy Zone of Contemplation
Now unavailable on Instaflam:
https://www.instagram.com/johntottenham/
… Put it out there and watch nothing happen.
February 11, 2018
Emptyscapes in Beverly Hills
Please do not feel under any obligation to attend this event…
January 6, 2018
Poit of Procrastination: El Eh Weekly
January 2, 2018
Some former curmudgeons…
Some former curmudgeons, later in life, make a conscious decision to become warm and encompassing individuals. As mortality becomes more tangible, they realize that it’s a waste of rapidly diminishing time to be cagey and mean-spirited, and with an effort—no less laudable for being discernible—they summon long-buried reserves of warmth and generosity. They realize that it’s time to be a good person, and strive towards that end until it comes naturally. Such a position, however, requires financial (and sometimes connubial) well-being: a secure center from which geniality and generosity can flow outward. It can be a heroic feat and is probably very rewarding for all concerned. Unfortunately, I am incapable of it on a practical level, as I will probably never be able to financially (or connubially) afford it.
December 23, 2017
The One
I am the one
waiting for the One.
I have never entered a room
without hoping that the One
I am waiting for
might be found there.
Despite decades of disappointment,
I still look for her in every face,
looking for somebody to become that place
where everything that falls apart
falls into place.
But if I found her, I wouldn’t want her,
for as long as the possibility
of somebody else wanting me exists,
I will always want somebody else.
And I realize now that if she ever does arrive
it will not be in the prime of either of our lives,
at a cocktail party with a drink in her hand,
but that she is more likely to arrive holding a bedpan
as I am breathing my last in a hospital bed.
Only then, with restlessness and hope extinguished,
and all other options exhausted,
will I finally be ready
for the One.
December 20, 2017
Gravy In The Rain
Italian broadcast from Radio Kaos featuring unknown interpreter “reading and stumbling over selections” of Inertia and Antiepithalamia.
December 2, 2017
WINDSONG
I have a heart like a wheelbarrow,
there are no windmills in my mind.
Love blows in and floats around freely
like the wind – getting in the way
of other things.
This rootless love without design,
which has no object, point or point of origin –
one looks for it in every face,
looking for somebody to become that place
where everything that falls apart
falls into place.
It seeks definition, a place of rest,
to find its home in a woman’s breast –
to die there, or multiply there.
When, surely, to keep it to oneself
would be best.
John Tottenham 