Tuesday, December 28, 2010

My Bad

Regrets
Matt Quarterman

People in movies and often in real life
are fond of saying things along the lines of,
“I have no regrets. If I had to do it all over again
there’s nothing that I would do differently.”
There’s a promise there, a life completely lived,
promises completely fulfilled, secrets perfectly kept.
But it can never happen.
There’s always an opportunity that’s missed,
a hand that’s raised in anger unexpectedly,
a slip of the tongue, a cruel wit
that you just can’t bite down.
It’s a bluff, really —
nobody could live that well.




I've got a few more posts up my sleeve but this is probably the last original poem I'll post this year. It's not the best or the worst, it's not much of anything, really. I like it because it began spontaneously but I'm still writing it. 


I also like it because it speaks to all the things I screw up. I know there are poems I'll kick myself for not including, topics I didn't expound on, matters of form or diction I would love to get a chance to rant about. 


I've been pretty lazy in most of my posts, including a paragraph or two but letting somebody else do the heavy lifting. I could have made this more than it was, but I didn't. I had casual video games to play and "30 Rock" episodes to rewatch and Facebook to obsessively refresh. That's time you don't get back.


Nietzche talks about eternal recurrence, not an idea that everything happens again and again a lá "Groundhog Day." But the thought that given everything from the Big Bang onwards, everything happened as it did, so if it happened again, everything would happen again. As Byrne and Eno named their recent album, "Everything That Happens Will Happen Today."


So I guess if I started all over again, you'd get the same grab bag of opinions, emotions and sloth just as it exists now. I'm not sure if this is comforting or alarming. But there you have it: my mea culpa for botching the whole thing up. Hope it's been as regrettable for you as it has been for me.

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