My Black Year

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poem from a dream of Edith Wharton, 1913, dedicated to Willa Schneberg with thanks for her series of six very helpful summer poetry workshops  

What more
coursing through this year,
A black trump of
a dozen worms
turning in a trunk,
then formless, black and
abstract like a pit:
When I, brought
before the throng of
demons and dwarves,
thought to joke,
make pleasantries
out of the ugly, grueling episodes
which, one by one,
have blackened my days,
now laid before me,
a year of hideous horror
sum totaled and drawn,
as if it were an honor,
as if I should bow low
to demon god and unholy ghost!
And what more to come,
What more for me to bear with
my usual aplomb,
as if the universe were mocking,
I the fool here,
or rather I playing the fool
once more in this year zero,
black and flat like death
with no bottom to it.

  Finger Ink by Geoffroy Dextraze, amazing artist and fellow presimulationist. Follow this link for more of his art: http://ubunoir23.deviantart.com/gallery/