envious jealous impotent

gertrude stein can tell you what the box is like in her modish lavish style — i can tell you what living inside a box is. nothing to be proud of. nothing to brag about. twenty five square feet —bathroom included— of pure solitude and seclusion. t.s. eliot can break new literary grounds, win praise, the nobel prize, change the poetry world forever writing about a waste land — i can tell you what living in a real waste land is, true coexistence with flies and feces, organic refuse decomposing at an arm's length, the never ending stench of a dead horse, the slippery path, oily muds and grease. nothing to be proud of. nothing to brag about. allen ginsberg can howl and tell you what this skeleton said and what that other skeleton said. i can tell you what a really soul chilling howl sounds like: it's the outcry of a mother mourning over her dead baby, a brand new skeleton wrapped in dry flesh. a brand new skeleton that will never ever utter a single word. nothing to be proud of. nothing to brag about. poetry is embedded with a kind of subtle treason. the beauty of the profane. the lightness of words. the banality of beauty. i am deeply resented. envious. jealous. impotent. boxed. blocked. actually, not being able to tell you anything but a hint of my pathetic self.


ian svensson (Detroit, MI, 1974)