March 23, 2016
Instead of doing my own work,
I took a long hard look
at somebody else’s work,
in the hope of being pleasantly relieved
by how bad it was.
But, much as I tried to deny it,
it was undeniably good.
And it pours out of him
like a gusher from a golden fountain
that never stops flowing.
Compared to this strained trickle
from a blocked and rusty faucet.
I take consolation
in how much it has cost me,
as if that might somehow redeem it.
Which, of course, it doesn’t.
But I don’t have much else
to take consolation in.
Posted in Magnanimous Misanthropy, Poems of regret and Resentment |
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April 13, 2013
Daunted by the energy that might be unleashed
were I to concentrate on the supposed task –
of what it might subtract, exact and adulterate; and of
the gagging staleness that could issue forth, if finally
penetrated, from something so long suppressed.
Succumbing instead to these afternoons of claustrophobic
wandering and restless prostration. Committed, only
to non-commitment. Driven, only to distraction.
Posted in Inertia Variations |
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November 21, 2012
It is pointless to have reached this point:
this summit of finely seasoned staleness.
The callow negativism of youth matured to a dubious vintage,
with a voluptuous bouquet of regret
and a lingering aftertaste of self-disgust.
Posted in Pointless Revelations |
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John Tottenham 