Relative Failure
Posted: Fri Mar 28, 2003 12:44 am
Relative Failure
I gained a tormented education
in the language of men.
I saw them drink, huddled away
amidst inappropriate clusters of trash,
and abandoned hobo campsites.
They sang profound elegies
for every memory
not yet burned away.
Some came and went.
Few taught me much.
What I did learn was that
failure is relative.
The everyday failures
of their lives
appeared instead to be
minor victories
of a sort
due to the simple fact
that they had survived
despite themselves.
The currency of success
was not the diligent dedication
that produced achievement,
but rather
the questionable facility
to satisfy
all momentary impulses and desires.
But they never questioned it.
If they were not marginal people,
their choices had marginalized
them to such an extent
that they had been rendered
insignificant.
Perhaps in the slow, dead hours of night
when a fleeting instance of clarity
penetrated their intoxication,
they realized what they had
lost.
And if they did,
such an epiphany would seem
to be
yet another minor victory,
evidence that self-awareness
had not yet
deserted them.
Somehow though,
I doubt it.
I wanted to weep
for each and every one of them,
and for myself, as well,
a despairing man-child who,
believing he deserved no better,
accompanied these men on their journey
into the abyss.
I gained a tormented education
in the language of men.
I saw them drink, huddled away
amidst inappropriate clusters of trash,
and abandoned hobo campsites.
They sang profound elegies
for every memory
not yet burned away.
Some came and went.
Few taught me much.
What I did learn was that
failure is relative.
The everyday failures
of their lives
appeared instead to be
minor victories
of a sort
due to the simple fact
that they had survived
despite themselves.
The currency of success
was not the diligent dedication
that produced achievement,
but rather
the questionable facility
to satisfy
all momentary impulses and desires.
But they never questioned it.
If they were not marginal people,
their choices had marginalized
them to such an extent
that they had been rendered
insignificant.
Perhaps in the slow, dead hours of night
when a fleeting instance of clarity
penetrated their intoxication,
they realized what they had
lost.
And if they did,
such an epiphany would seem
to be
yet another minor victory,
evidence that self-awareness
had not yet
deserted them.
Somehow though,
I doubt it.
I wanted to weep
for each and every one of them,
and for myself, as well,
a despairing man-child who,
believing he deserved no better,
accompanied these men on their journey
into the abyss.