Survival In Bad Times Survival in bad times? What did Verlaine do? There are always some choices. Wait and they appear. The void is less empty than the full cup. Lǎo Zǐ. The full cup is wrested from your hands by another who will come after you, disturbing your peace of mind. Kǒng Zǐ. Listen to some music or compose a little music of your own; read some poetry or write the unwritten poem, like the one you are reading. Move others, make them cry. He killed his senses with wine, Vermouth, and gin; others fed richly on classical music and creating the perfect rhyme. Maybe. That's what I did to ignore the bed bugs and hear myself think over neighbor Jonathan's self-agrandizing meth rants. Wine, Vermouth, gin, and Beethoven. A classical cocktail. (And what about Beethoven? What did he do when he could hear nothing and he could not sleep?) It got me through. And I tried not to abandon the few moments of clarity and sensual beauty snatched from the void while waiting for such moments to come again on a regular basis. |
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by Louis Martin |