I wanted to write
of the light in my lover's eyes
of how far the wind carried her sighs
but so many were there, ere I
the giant footsteps of the path had
become quagmires of treacle.
I wanted to write
of angst, anxiety, alienation
of the afflictions and affectations affecting modern life
but Eliot's hollow men
stumbled through that wasteland generations ago.
I wanted to write
of my contemplations, meditations
on the virtues, the bliss of sweet suicide
but Plath did that, and carried through
after reporting back from the brink several times.
Somewhat beyond my timid courage,
to let the red lead sinkers drag me down, to drown for art.
I wanted to write
of the curse, the blessing, the fierce fire of sexuality
and attendant politics, high and low
but Cohen, venerable venerealogist, already
spelunked in the damp cave of tumescent depression.
I wanted to write
of much more than this mingy eulogy
but as Auden buried Yeats, so
poets have buried poetry.
Robert Douglas Hickey |
