I would like to start by assuring anyone who cares enough about the topic at hand that the following – rather random – blog update doesn’t count as procrastination, it counts as inspiration. In fact, has it never happened to any of you to become so obsessed with linger so much on one subject that you just have to do something completely different to simply regain your creative energy? Hopefully, then, this little “breathing pause” that I created for myself will help me get back on track with what might be called “real work”. I give you, therefore, yet another one of my written-on-the-spur-of-the-moment, self-reinvigorating-though-monstrously-bleak poems. (Also: yes, of course I am aware that the “Christmas Carol” illustration has absolutely nothing to do with anything. It just so happened that I had a copy of that illustration in front of me for the whole time that I was writing the poem, so it just seemed appropriate to insert it in here, as well.)
Overheard in a Drawer
You don’t know me –
Except for the scrawny name
Scrawled in black on that
Lonesome scrap of unrecycled paper;
You don’t see me –
Except for those times when
We both go to hell and accidentally
Share an anecdote or two
About our limpid lives;
You forget my face –
And that’s in spite
Of all my efforts to slip under
Your office door unsigned
Passport photos of me from time
To time…
So what am I to you?
Am I a speck of dust in your eye
That you don’t even feel?
Am I that shadow by your desk
At night that’s barely even real?
Am I the least annoying problem
That yet lingers in a corner of your mind?
Am I the first stray breeze
That ever crossed your path
And you don’t know what
To begin with when I’m there?
And who are you to me?
Sure, I’ve played games with other players
But you seem to know my hand
Before my turn and so I throw
Away my cards, I never look
Over my shoulder;
But who are you to me?
Wrapped tightly in your silences,
Protected by the heavy ghosts
Of lovers from your fairground
Far away – who are you?
Encyclopaedia Vanitatum 