DON'T GIVE A DAMN

DON’T GIVE A DAMN

Don’t give a damn. Sit here chain-smoking cigarettes, out of the box, wondering whatever became of me. Poetically-somnolent, stars encrusted in the corners of my eyes, as if they’d been out all night, panning for gold. Effulgent morning light making the dirt on the windows glow, but that’s the light’s business as mine is just sitting here letting things go if they want to. Keeping a coffee cup full. Wine of the bean. My favourite liquid eclipse. And this ghost of smoke, my affable familiar. Sometimes my solitude appalls me and I assume a multiplicity of forms just to keep from being alone, but this morning, I am refreshingly irrelevant throughout my own, unknown universe. I’m not a holdout in a holy war that doesn’t know it’s over. All that blood. All those poppies. Not everything washes off in the grave. And if I save your life, am I responsible for it? And if I don’t? Who will save mine? And when’s the last time you saw anyone rushing to the rescue of a lighthouse? Or swimming out against a rip tide of stars to save a drowning lifeboat? As the man said about enlightenment: all the gains of war are ruined by singing and dancing. It’s kind of cute. But I can think of darker joys than those that are derived like music out of defeat. And I am not idiot enough this morning to start dancing.

PATRICK WHITE