Yorick
It never comes easy—
Every page stained yellow
By the sweat of the words.
So much effort expended
Linking one delicate thought
To the next, again and again.
This is where my renown
As an inveterate “try-hard”
Tends to come in handy.
And while work ethic isn’t
One of the glamorous talents
It does have its advantages
To those painfully aware
Of their own limitations
I’d rather have genius
But I’ll settle for relentlessness
If that’s what it takes
To avoid the fate of an easy mediocrity.
What can I say? Go all in
When you think you have the cards
And when it’s all over you’ll develop
A new appreciation for the ordinary.
I don’t expect to win
But I’m still in the game
And sometimes that’s enough.
Someone sweaty once told me that.
To be perfectly honest
I just like being able to play.
I could do this forever.
I’d show you what I am working on
But it wouldn’t make any sense,
At least not yet, barely half done.
Every day I’m out there, at it,
Chipping and scratching an odd
Lumpen shape out of silent stone
That never gets closer to completion.
I’ve never told anyone
Where I hide it
During the day.
What would be the point?
One night I was looking at it
Under the moonlight
And thought I saw a skull—
Alas poor jeffrey,
He was a man of infinite angst
Always his own worst critic
Never satisfied with the quality
Of his accumulative body of work—
The next morning I decided not to do anything at all.
Put down my hammer and chisel
And held an oeuvre of stutterings
Close to my chest.
I knew there wasn’t anything there
But peace and gratitude.
It’s going to be so beautiful, I thought,
As the vision of what it was supposed
To be finally revealed itself.
When I die I’ve left instructions
For its final disposition—
Put it outside
Exposed to wind and rain
So time can sand it down
To its final intangible form
Even after death
I’ll never stop working,
Putting the finishing touches
On a piece I call Absence
