John Lindley
"Foolish Enough To Have Been A Poet"
Clearly no-one to blame but himself then?
All of those days he could have earned
a dirt under the nails, honest to goodness living,
spent instead lounging in an oversized blouse,
wine and laudanum at his elbow
and fingers black with ink.
He should have got out more –
a garret is no place for one’s health
but then nor are walks on the fells
trudged only in bad weather
in cloak and crotch chafing boots.
Presumably consumption - the least he could have expected.
And that, no doubt, coming so soon after the syphilis.
I expect they did right by him at the end:
snuffed out the candle, burnt the letters,
got out the winding sheet.
Better this inscription, I suppose, than chipping a line
of his verse on the headstone –
doubt anyone would have understood a word of it.
* Inscribed, at his own request, on the headstone of Asa Benveniste (1925-1990)
Page(s) 5
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- Second Aeon
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