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
throughout this haze of rust. Riding the waves
of lostness across the landscape of a desk,
into the bulwark of a threadbare curtain.
Outside, a sparrow sits on the telegraph wire,
a stray dog limps across the sidewalk.
And that is the extent of nature in these parts.
Silence drills through me, birdsong flickers in the air,
overlaid by the constant drone of traffic and tinnitus.
Urgency fades into futility, and once again I find myself
on the verge of giving up before I have even begun.
If I could see myself sitting here –
a lazy perfectionist sinking into the unseizable day –
barely engaged in the pretense of activity,
I don’t know whether I’d laugh or cry…
or remain numb.
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.
FEELINGS
I may as well face the fact
That I am no longer capable
Of doing what I once believed
I was capable of doing.
Not that I had any reason to assume
That I was capable of it.
It was just a feeling that I had.
And now I have a different feeling.
ANOTHER DAY
Take some initiative…
Do something with your life:
I get up from the sofa,
Walk across to the table
And write these words
Down on a scrap of paper.
Then I return to the sofa and
Fall asleep.
A WEDNESDAY IN AUGUST
I ask little enough of myself,
And I cannot even accomplish that much.
I would rather sit here, obsessively undriven,
Doing as close to nothing as is humanly possible.
Entertaining, occasionally, a pang of grief
Or grievance. Fixing on a stray regret or a memory
Drifting like dust in sunlight, or
A shadow falling over a shadow.
John Tottenham 