"He seems to be on the brink of one of his bad spells again, one of the fits of lugubrious self-pity that turn into black gloom. He likes to think that they comes from elsewhere, episodes of bad weather that cross the sky and pass on. He prefers not to think they come from inside him and are his, part of him...
-Coetzee
A happy young man
ReplyDeleteHappy young men are great things
My father said.
He is neither happy, nor young.
I despair to think of life not moving – of waiting,
Watching, withering.
Old women no longer tell me how tall I have grown.
I saw a picture of a young man, famous for playing a boy.
He never waited or withered.
Couldn’t drive though.
David, hit me with a verse.
Oh, God, oh, Spirit, oh, Gaia, oh Time:
I walk with you all
I swim in your waters and your winds cleanse me.
My life flutters and I cling to it,
I beg to watch it grow
But is it fertile?
Forgive the clumsiness of my psalm.
I am not great
For I am no longer young; nor am I happy.
Cat’s in the cradle.
The beloved. The the the
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