Artists Have Failed

By: David Lerner

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