Petites Misères De La Vie Humaine

I will make a list:

 

1.   The irreconcilable complainer. The complainer.

2.   Unnecessary guilt. How it grows over time. A general condition.

3.   The glib, the loud. 

4.   A cigar rolled so tightly it offers no draw and cannot be smoked.

5.   Arrogance. What is immoral.

6.   What is moral to the point of rigor mortis.

7.   The necessity of intimacy.

8.   Those who ignore this. The persistence of contradiction. 

9.   The vapidity of politicians and other public embarrassments.

10.  Attentions given to the mediocre. Variations in cultural weather. 

11.  Attentions given to the manqué.

12.  The self-centered limitations of not knowing, or accepting, that

all things beautiful and dear will be replaced even in greater

number by other things as beautiful and dear.

13   Poseurs and other imposters. The plight of necessity. 

14.  The certitude so often exhibited by others without considering their position.

15.  Garish fashion in all things. Their transitory nature. 

16.  Ambition’s ambition. Its location. Its dislocations.

Michael Gessner, with Tibetan terrier

Michael Gessner has authored sixteen books of poetry and prose, among them: Transversales (2013), Nightshades (2022), and Selected Poems (2016). Other information, including reviews may found be at the Poetry Foundation.

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