Success is always drenched in sweat except for those...

IF YOU THINK YOU'RE THE ONLY ONE


“A quiet and modest life,” says he in German, the most successful of them/us all, “brings more joy than a pursuit of success bound with constant unrest.”

Albert Einstein’s hand-written tip to a courier at the Imperial Hotel
Tokyo, November 1922


If you think you’re the only one to record the way the world’s run
Know that every top’s naked spun when the wrapped string’s outrun
Everyone’s in such a hurry to step out of this collapsing quandary
Even if the one and only query is left without comforting certainty

Everybody wants a piece of posterity to be part of everlasting history
Even at the cost of mimicry if only to keep shoring up sheer vanity

Fire burns out in an empty shell the way the poem slim content quell
Who reads for meaning to feel well means to read more feeling swell
Roads lead to where one wants to go, lines come to an end in vertigo
To each ego own voice sounds best, who renounces the will but hobo

Tell this to a Cervantes five years in quarries after the Battle of Lepanto
Confront Dostoeyeski with firing squad again after four years in Siberia
Tear Theo from Van Gogh’s bosom after Gauguin’s bullish loud hysteria
Tease Mozart in his deathbed with the sleepless scores of his concerto

There’s no quiet in a modest life for billions will step eager on your face
Our world honours the sham strong the phoney the fake the half-baked
The weak work all day not to crave success but to fend off all disgrace
No true mother harassed by rape abandons the baby for rapists’ sake

Success is always drenched in sweat except for those fils de Putes
Who inherited the earth long before the oldest profession followed suit


(c) T. Wignesan - Paris, 2017