I am a professor of nothing I am the best nothing of my generation I have been granted external grants of nothingness I have watched the tumbleweeds blow in a song of nothing I have played nothing on the world’s tiniest violin And it sings a tale of nothing My office is cobwebs and mildew It does not exist I will go on a sabbatical, where I will do nothing for nothing My teaching evaluations are blank They commemorate a time when nothing happened to nobody I will write a book in air I will apply for grants in oxygen I will have a healthy breakfast and engage in a robust exercise regimen All in the service of nothing Nothing, I bow down to you I am in awe of your charisma I walk into a room, and no one is there, especially me There will one day be a revival of nothing There will be books written There will be awards granted It will be studied It will cause great debates On the true meaning of nothing In a future, where no one will eat or breathe There will be no more food No more sex No more music Except for that tiny violin, singing a meek song An elegy, in memory of nothing The sound will be so devastating it will surpass utterance It will be streamed, consumed, and it will be the saddest sound ever made Nothing, you are too much for me And too little for anyone else I will teach you I will get my 401K All to support nothing, like it never really happened Nothing will be sued Nothing will be a scandal Until everything is swallowed up And burns brightly And simmers and smolders Until there is no longer a memory Of any time when nothing ever happened So have your conferences Your parades Your sessions Your institutes Commemorate nothing in all it never was It is already over It is already dead There’s nothing left Nothing comes from it Not anymore It is already gone You can never have it back You never appreciated it And you will never be forgiven
2 Comments
No posts
I love this. (In general I like how reading and writing in the negative works my brain.) I like the imagery here, and how writing in the negative softens in certain places what otherwise may feel biting.
I think you mean negative in the sense of Keats's Negative Capability, "when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason—Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge. This pursued through volumes would perhaps take us no further than this, that with a great poet the sense of Beauty overcomes every other consideration, or rather obliterates all consideration."[