Boring
Boring
The only gods I pray to are gods of unknowing.
I am bone weary of living in interesting times,
So I send up my shallow and desperate plea,
“Please, now, you intractable silent fuckers,
let me have this one wish:
Give me boring times.”
Let me do as I am shaped to do,
To fart around in privacy and
Obscurity. Let me be armchair
Laity to the hallowed and shrewd
Academics. Let me be full of piss
And foreboding, in my Quixotic opining.
…a bitter old man who needs something sweet
To see him through the days. Wise, perhaps,
In disinvolvement, insightful, perhaps, in wry
And dark humor, in comfortable cynicism of
Humans and our nature. Let me be that…
Let me be that misanthrope, who hates humans
For their shallow foolishness, but who loves all
Humanity because I see moreness within each,
And let me sound off all the same, just once in a while…
But let me enjoy my coffee and books,
Baths and naps, and ne’er venture to
Crusade again, not for cause,
Not for country, not for pride.
Let me live in boring times, and long ones.
Sitting at a comfortable distance from the
Folly of other ages, passing mild judgement
And wondering at great achievements not my own,
An unimportant and average old putterer, with
More hobbies than time, and more time than
I know what to do with…
…and only enough money to make me appreciate what I already have.
Let it all be safe and fair and kind and let
Me be the crank at the edge of it all.
Rich in self-satisfying pursuits, even
Self-important in trivial obscurities, in very mild grudges.
Let me be one who really has nothing to complain about, and let it all be…
Colorful and benign, peaceful, boring, and
A fair enough world that anyone else can enjoy the same.
Ye old gods of unknowing, lift your curse of interest from
This world and make us dull and idiosyncratic and outwardly
No more annoying than a mild sunburn.
If this sounds like banality, you might be right,
Or you might just not be paying attention.
Boring is what you make of it.
Heavens forfend if it be more.
-D.W., 2020