An Imperfect Host

(Still sick, I found myself without the energy to engage in the many and long-delayed tasks that have awaited me these last few weeks, so instead I surrendered to an afternoon of resting my cough on the couch and watching the wonderful film that is "The Remains of the Day". Afterward, perhaps connectedly, I wrote these lines. Who knows why or what they mean; one of the perks of of calling oneself a poet, if one is so foolish to believe in poets or perks, is that one cannot be asked to explain verbal arrangements in terms of literal meaning. Does that mean poetry is a cop-out? Very probably, and maybe consciously so. In any case, these words emerged and given that these days my inclination to write has been indirectly proportionate to my desire to write, I am grateful for them and so I send them out into the world to be killed, surely a fate more exciting than a slow desiccation in my dusty notebook)


Fate always precludes
peace in our time; and yet

we hope for a prosperous future
and the quiet wars of everyday

are dumbly side-lined
by our appeasing efforts

at gentle amusement and gainful occupation.
We avoid our lives

in black and white
newsreels that deny

our confusions, preferring the clean direction
of a sharply cut corner,

and thus embracing the empty arms
of the entertaining acrobats,

we flip our frequency of thought
to polished signals of simple display,

we switch off the sweaty noise
of knowledge, we cannot face

the intricate book of complicity
so we bury ourselves

in the soft wools of soi-disant success.
We avoid our lives

afraid of what they might ask
of us, in our own voices

we ventriloquize one another,
busying our small attentions

with minor perfections--I too
aspire to drown

out the putrefying howl of the inexorable
imperfection.

If we feel ourselves at all, foreign
as we are to any essential action,

we are naturally terrified
and if at all we do anything

about this so-called fate,
we pontificate—I pontificate here,

now in the cowardice
of sheltering line-breaks

and the hubris of thought-
fully chosen words, idleness

in these illusory arrangements,
such pitiable consolations,

all disregarded in the real world
of easy rhymes, catchy rhythms

salty allusions and sexy conceits
and everyone would rather make a joke

I myself would prefer have a laugh, my ego
would enjoy the adulation of such applause

but my treacherous inclination
is to slight such an imperfect host.

This is why I pretend I am invited to the gatherings.
This is why I sit alone and write my excuses.