An artist should be as a martyr burned at the stake, signaling through the flames.
—Artaud
artists have failed the world boils down around us people get uglier and uglier and smile more and more frequently and they buy tickets to things, they go to the dance they go to a rock show, or a museum, they read a book they are moved they discuss it life seems easy for a second in the glow of someone else's suffering these products are sold there are promotional campaigns and colorful record jackets there are reviews it seems the artists are ball-less even the woman it seems that the artists have surveyed their souls and apportioned them according to the demands of a career it seems that they swagger, as if they were going somwhere but I can hear God he his hiding in the onions and in the clattering wheels of the streetcar he is dust, he is ocean, he is plaque in far away places he is blood in a jar, he is 1 inch of flat beer left in the mug a cold whispering most evident in the sweet dead of night when nothing is stirring, not even the rats he is underwater, with the drowned man he is above, lost in a cloud and he says: you in whom I was well pleased have failed for evil is more savage than the breaking of your heart
You can find David Lerner’s hard-hitting published works at Zeitgeist Press.
“Lerner was a broken-down saint if there ever was one. He was an eloquent screamer, a soft-spoken rageoholic, a madman with a great manuscript. His poetry will always be a reminder of a time when poetry in the Mission was spontaneous, magical, and more than a little bit dangerous.” — Bucky Sinister, San Francisco Bay Guardian
I love that you are giving David so much play, and he would love it even more! He was a force- A giant Jew bear of a man with an extremely imposing physical presence-- Big hair, big gut, big everything. A poet-ogre with a fierce snarl to cover up his absurdly tender heart. He was a true outsider and believer in the poetic cause but I don't he would have minded a little of literary success and bit money in his pocket. But we can keep that on the down low.
life seems easy for a second
in the glow of
someone else's suffering
Great poem! Savage, relentless, true.