Ordinary Men

Humble, modest;
no one could say such things
about me. Chaste, pure;
those are just as funny, those are
just as tragic.

Maybe I don’t cut
the same figure as those
we name as such; it’s possible,
it’s even probable, more than
just likely. Maybe I’m a disgusting
man, but more likely an ordinary
one — one whose evil comes
in increments, one who sleeps
with banality and wraps it around him
like a stole.

No matter — no. These days
I get up, do what is required
of an ordinary man — alone, retired
from the daily, peaceful by default
if not by choice; I go and sit
in my living room chair
and when I get a moment I think
of other ordinary men.
I try to decide
how to be like them, and I (every
once in a while) succeed, but
I (more often than not) fail
to hold it together and behave.

I sit in the dark room before dawn
and in spite of everything holy
I do not wish to be alive, or dead,
or anything at all.