Subject matter matters
Might I not therefore renounce the renunciation
That has seduced me into the untruth
That I am bad

Gluttony sloth
Disgusting evasion for fear of detection
Violence of unchecked passion and deceit and deadly pride
The sybaritic privilege of unrestrained ennui

I move uncertainly
I move self-consciously afraid of error
Bump the jamb as I pass
Drop the object in my grasp

Fear a self-fulfillment
Though Sensei Splinter advised
That courage is not the absence of fear
But the mastery of it

Granted no shame in fear
But the failure to master it
Is a failure pure and simple
And failure is shameful

Once I dreamed I knew the solution
To the problem of self-control
But if I knew it I’ve forgotten
How to make will the master of will

We speak of performing an action
As one might perform the cello part
As one might perform the role
Of a hero who moves decisively

Whether to perform is not a choice
No shilly-shallying or preferring not to
One performs well or badly
Or somewhere in the ambiguous middle

Actors hit their mark
Cellists control the bow and the fingerboard
Those who walk and carry things
Control their motions and their thoughts

But I have harbored evil thoughts
Thought the worst of those who love me
Wished that harm might be visited upon
Those offensive whom I’ve never met

And upon those I know not excluding myself
For I was taught that within me is a soul
An auditorium full of sins that remain seated
And a scanty faction of grace that heads for the lobby

If I could remove the bad
Soul surgery metaphysical demolition
Obtain the absurdity of absolution
But what’s done is done

And what if one is truly fundamentally
Congenitally and irreparably
Firmly and irretrievably
Intrinsically bad

Or bad fifty-one percent
Some good qualities sure
But inextricably involved
Hopelessly contaminated

I’m not as bad as all that
I know I’m not that bad
So why the unforgiving urge
To insist the contrary

What’s the metric
What instrument detects
What operation calculates
The proportion of depravity

An erroneous line of thought
Perfection a fiction
An abstract machinic construct
An immaculate conceptualization

I am not Hamlet not Prufrock not Bartleby
Healthy enough in body I can what I can
I can talk of Michelangelo
Strut the mold of form

So many addictions overcome
Or at least driven into remission
Save this one maybe the last
The indulgence in hatred of oneself

The irises overblown and drooping fade
Creepers invade the azaleas
Unease settles in the suburb
The nature of nature condemned to artifice

But I’ve heard a mermaid sing in made-up song
I’ve heard the blues walking like a man
The owl its welcome cry
The baby’s urgent announcement

What do I want
To punish or to recover
Or to grow and flourish and doubtless perish
In the inextricable soil

Who never fails has never attempted
Knowledge and ignorance inseparable
And ignorance infinitely the larger share
Partial success a well-manured acre

The iris petals fade and fall but the rhizome does not die
The azaleas will bloom again next year
My flowers of evil will cease
And I will persist in ambiguous motions