October 24, 2018
Emptyscapes: Art Show
Lora Schlesinger Gallery
Bergamot Station, B5b: 2525 S.Michigan Ave, Santa Monica CA 90404
November 3 – December 15 2018
Opening reception: Nov 3rd 4-6pm
July 21, 2016
Life’s Journey
I seemed to have always been the same age.
Then I looked in the mirror and saw a tired
and devious old man gazing warily back at me.
An old man, alone in a room, masturbating over a memory,
fantasizing about women who have forgotten about me,
and brooding over deliberately missed opportunities.
A shadow of my former shadow
slowly becoming invisible, turning gray.
Unfortunately, nobody noticed
that I never went away.
June 15, 2013
A Prelude of Sorts
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.
May 29, 2013
Earth
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.
February 21, 2013
CV
I tried, to no avail, to rot.
I really gave it my best shot.
But vitality kept getting in the way, appearing
unexpectedly, when I was most hopeful
of abandoning hope.
But still I refuse to give up
on giving up. I remain optimistic
that I still have it in me.
John Tottenham 