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Failed To Impress


You refused to go deeper than the surface of things

and it reflected itself in every word you said.

You invited disasters that you knew would bring

yourself more involved with worlds damaged and dead.

Insisting that you'd accepted all things in stride,

you nonetheless seemed to anticipate the finishing end.

And it divorces me from you, relieves me of all I'd abide

if upon your weakness I would have to depend.


Winds determine our affairs and they so frequently change

that chaos is our condition, nothing can be sustained.

All communication is labored and we refuse to engage

any topic upon which future mistakes cannot be blamed.

A strange cloud hovers near my pen, I see a face

I recognize as that of an envy for that which I do not possess.

Cursing your lack of movement, I now leave this place

unaware what it was about my words that failed to impress.


They say you believed many things, and followed them through

to a logical end that no one dared to predict.

You believed memory was invention, your images were true,

but your talent was illusion, yet another clumsy trick.

You silly bastard, there's still much work left to be done

before you can claim you did your best.

And what if after all that there's no respect to be won?

Then you won't have to care why you failed to impress.

Good one J

Hi J ~

Your poem reminds me of the external pressure so often put on men to "succeed" and "make their mark," and the nebulous feelings of failure that plague and haunt them, as they try to keep accurate measure of where they're at in the grand scheme of the game, and what others may say after they're gone.

As always, your turns of phrase work so well to show the inherent contradictions and ambivalences that are simply part of who we are.

~ Elizabeth

Well jeez, J, you sure as hell impressed me!!

~Makera