Artless

The book I’d like to read has not been written;
The tune I want to hear has not been played.
No painting is precisely as I’d wish it;
My perfect movie is, as yet, unmade.
What song would soothe my ear now, there’s no telling;
No architect’s creation holds my gaze;
I fear my feet would find no fun in dancing;
No appetite for even Shakespeare’s plays.
And what of my own kindred: do the poets
Have powers to aid me in these fevered times?
Perhaps I might discover some great secret
Concealed in their cadences and rhymes.
For poets speak of love and truth and beauty;
Show us a new and grand reality.
A vision of a world unspoiled, unburdened;
Not as it is, but as it ought to be.
And yet I see no promise of redemption:
All things are tainted by the touch of hands
Intent on harm and hurt; no thought of making
But only breaking, ruining our lands.
And there’s no comfort in the old religions
No hope in our so-called democracy:
And even at the bottom of a bottle
There’s no long-term solution I can see.
So I will go out early in the morning
Ride through the country, where I hope to find
A truth no human art has yet imparted
To my world-weary heart and troubled mind.

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Nothing to say that hasn’t been said.
Nothing to write that hasn’t been read.
Don’t have a song that hasn’t been sung.
No bell or changes that haven’t been rung.
Nothing to do that hasn’t been done.
Nothing to win that hasn’t been won.
No words to speak that haven’t been spoken.
No ground to break that hasn’t been broken.
Nowhere to go that nobody’s gone.
No light to shine where it hasn’t been shone.
No battle to fight that hasn’t been fought.
No lesson to teach that hasn’t been taught.
No axe to grind that hasn’t been ground.
Nothing to seek that hasn’t been found.
Nothing discovered not already known.
Nothing revealed not already shown.
Nothing attempted that hasn’t been tried.
Nothing admitted that can’t be denied.
No insights or wisdom, no viewpoint or voice.

No quitting, no turning.
No changing.
No choice.