By Steve Evans.
In the style of a poet
who makes a point
of never really arriving
(at a point, that is),
I have watched and noted
my own comings and goings
as the work of a famous artist or writer,
both to seem at ease with that,
charming my own life,
and to make me famous too,
posterity maybe being the point, after all,
though not actually saying anything
worth remembering.
In the more-or-less diary
that my poems comprise,
I’ll also name those poet friends,
who name me in their work.
And I’ll add obscure references.
Henri Émile Benoît Matisse painted
‘Le bonheur de vivre’
perhaps knowing I would refer to it
these many years later
and how it troubled me
on one of my walks to the store,
especially as I passed that garden
with the unkempt roses.
Unlikely, yes, but I fancied it so.
This is still not about you
and I don’t have to let you in,
don’t remotely want to do so.
Look elsewhere.
Use your time as you see fit.
Not my business.
I will keep name-dropping
other painters too,
certain movies and a dozen actors,
maybe Louis de Funès
or Isabelle Adjani,
suggesting obliquely that they
would have envied me
in my acute observations,
my absolutely spot-on linking
of their roles and my own.
Anyway, I have a new shopping list
and another walk to take now.
Neither relates to Matisse this time.
Maybe Henry Dumas though
(noting his young and tragic death)
and a new poem coming.
But it won’t have you in it.
None will ever do that.
