Posthumous Reflections of a Prehumous Poet

It is a difficult thing at seventeen
to read Poe and Stevenson and feel a certain
connection with them,
knowing that recognition was almost solely posthumous,
post-death,
having spent all their lives pouring--
emptying--
their very beings onto paper,
into masterpieces of life-containing language,
and then struggling with the hope and
ever-accompanying despair--
will this alter an existence?
One poet said the best measure for
good literature is whether we
live more intensely for the reading of it;
Poe and Stevenson spent
decades waking early,
wrestling with idea symbols
read left to right,
and then, eyes bloodshot, crawling into an
arctic bed, shivering. Their whole
lives long, they never knew if the
fervor they had squeezed from their own
would transfer to others’ or if it
would wash away
like windshield graffiti in a thunderstorm.

In suburban America I am told that I
still have six decades to look
forward
to.
I think that will perhaps be
a terrible trial, an
artistic eternity; to
write even when no one cares enough to
love you like Greene or to
even to be as important as Orwell to
know you are hated.

The paper stretches
blank
before me, beckoning my pen.
As if drafting a will, I worry that it will matter to none until I
die.


Daniel Klotz

©2000

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