Detritus

The poet is forced. He wearily scrabbles out from and into his disheveled abode at least once a day. Once the detritus of his wanderings were not so steeply piled on the worn out steps.

Where to start?
Everything cracks and shakes,
the air trembles with similes,
No one world's better than another;
the earth moans with metaphors.
- Osip Mandelstam

Now that one hits me right where I live. I am clearly guilty of contributing to the unnecessary trembling and moaning of the planet. An indictment of all wannabe poets, everywhere, who all should be convicted of inveterate littering, of creating incorrigible messes for the rest of humankind. We are members of a species who now must accept its place among all the rest, who slog through ever increasing drifts of detritus as if we poets suffer universal brain eczema and internal head lice.

scrab·ble
v. scrab·bled, scrab·bling, scrab·bles
v.intr.
1. To scrape or grope about frenetically with the hands.
2. To struggle by or as if by scraping or groping.
3. To climb with scrambling, disorderly haste; clamber.
4. To make hasty, disordered markings; scribble.
v.tr.
1. To make or obtain by scraping together hastily.
2. To scribble on or over.
n.
1. The act or an instance of scrabbling.
2. A scribble; a doodle.
[Dutch schrabbelen, from Middle Dutch, frequentative of schrabben, to scrape; see sker-1 in Indo-European roots.]

in·vet·er·ate
Adjective:
Having a particular habit, activity, or interest that is
long-established and unlikely to change.


in·cor·ri·gi·ble
Adjective:
(of a person or their tendencies) Not able to be corrected, improved,
or reformed.

de·tri·tus
pl. - detritus
1. Loose fragments or grains that have been worn away from rock.
2.
a. Disintegrated or eroded matter: e.g. the detritus of past civilizations.
b. Accumulated material; debris: e.g. "Poems, engravings, press releases, he eagerly scrutinizes the detritus of fame" (Carlin Romano).

[French détritus, from Latin detritus, from past participle of deterere, to lessen, wear away; see detriment.]

Oh Lord, I am sorry.
No, really I am.

To the proprietor of the inn at Whiskey River:
I am warning you...my next post.
I am sure you wish me to avoid gratitude for your part in this confession.

Self Portrait