Dan Williams

Wrung Dry of Pointless Vanity

The most taxing and demanding of the credentials you needed

was the ability to not appear to have dismally failed

when examination of facts does not make it clear you have succeeded.

Your story must always appear exactly as you imagined it would,

as if you had improved your attitude as you say you have,

as if you would have quit this years ago if you thought you could.

 

You must grieve again the identical refrain, the same incomplete passage,

like music of our lives played repeatedly without properly resolving.

Dissonant notes played in wrongorder at barely foot-tapping speed,

pages with handwritten notes expressing thoughts still evolving

around a place self-pity can often be seen, hands twisted till they bleed.

 

Wrung dry of pointless vanities, unnecessary ones will be bled from you.

Things said by you in anger most times end up causing pain for you,

but body blows will soften them while sacraments are read to you;

they will no more cause your death than can the thunder cause the rain.

 

Is life to be defined as being anything more than robotic, futile?

Flailing about, no theory trusted, nothing strong enough to hold you?

Seeing days pass where hard-earned knowledge is jettisoned,

making way for stories maybe easy to dismiss, most of the time,

like so many of the stories that have repeatedly been told to you.