The Nervous Disposition of the Writer

I prefer pencil and paper yet I’m told I must go online and self-promote.

Should I then presume? And how should I begin?

I am fairly boring as humans go, easily overlooked –middle-aged and greying, shut up at home eating marmalade on toast washed down by cups of tea. I write looking out my eastern window wearing an old morning coat, the collar mounting firmly to my chin. Like the coat, I am told both my arms and legs are too thin. Life has been a succession of evenings, mornings, afternoons, measured out in coffee spoons.

I have seen my own moments of my greatness flicker and fade and now labor for other writers, older and more masterful. I am no Shakespeare, nor even one of his characters. An attendant Lord in Hamlet perhaps, pushing forward the plot’s progress, starting a scene or two. I pick among the literature wasting away on the trash heap of the public domain. My goal – to polish up an overlooked literary work or two, reintroducing forgotten sustenance to more than one unfortunate childhood.

It will have been worth the wrestling with WordPress if I am able to throw the lively patterns crafted by now dead poet before a live audience. I hope no ancient writer sits up in his coffin to say,   “That is not it at all. That is not what I meant, at all.” Still, I think I have chosen the beautiful and beauty cannot help but gleam when held up to the light.

I confess to hide behind the artwork of another sides-steps the shaming fear of possible failure. But it also guards against vainglory.

I deferentially hope to be of use.

A.J. Prufrock