We of the craft are all crazy, but I more than the rest; some are affected by gaiety, others by melancholy, but all are more or less touched, though few except myself have the candour to avow it, which I do to spare my friends the pain of sending it forth to the world.
          —Byron¹

                    *

[W]hereas, at present, those who most admire the genius will be the most disappointed in the man.
          —Blessington²

                    i.

We cannot share the pain we each inflict, cannot • take in what we dish without consideration, • copies of originals we have long studied, • our sins are imitations of Selves we diminish • when faced with plenty, intentional misery • suddenly sent out, present, scent permeating • ev’rything once pleasant, without reservation • enervating and unnerving, undeserving • of reward, our lauded erring traverses dark • territory never meant for the errant to • trample with these errands, too loud and untoward, • unbecoming, in our tour tearing through this world • toward spleen-leaking oblivions weakening • •

                    ii.

knees and taking as toll our toil only the soil • will welcome its more recondite luxury of • ignoring, obscuring the obscured, ignobling • our pall’s global pull, gravitating lulls of byes • herding those we have hurt into bosomed armour • embrace enfolds with warmer succor, appalled that • to have existed at all, scalded by such hot • amorous ribald, what we said, we saw, lived not • enthralled by, but laughed at for having sold tales too • tall, pride is love vanity binds, that blind god who • approaches us by walking and takes off, all of • a sudden, by flying, an eclipse aflutter, • timid and quivering, hovering to feign its • •

                    iii.

divine presence, some silence deafening itself • anticipating death, convincing us day is • night, concealed flame paining its veil, obsidian • discus throwing strange reflections, what heaven’s wink • mirrors blackens eyes, elevating to wingèd • symbolism self-deprecation, how like a flag • in battle by an enemy threatened, delights • in retreating, receding, fleeting heat inking • humid scenes written in sweating dips of the pen • on the waxen tablets of melting memories, • blinking canvases weeping blank mimicry, love • that could have been curled up in fists, crippled, hidden, • entempled like incense to balm, burned from inside • •

                    iv.

sacrileged heads chanting anodyne chortles of • agonizing demise, passion in possession • is a demon when, in its frenzied season, seems • worth having, more a friend than a fiend when emptied • of spirit, greedy genius hides what big • lie over-valued portraits refuse to describe, • abuse lyrical and lethal, beautiful and • despised, truth’s comfort sometimes comes in • uncomfortable sizes, fitting, then, that what • we deny eventually arrives even • when we try to ignore what scorch our ignorance • ignites, no longer enormous in limelit sight, • though sigh as we might, breath is breath is breath, is life…

__________
¹Lord Byron, interviewed by Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington, at Genoa, April–July, 1823, in Lady Blessington’s Conversations of Lord Byron: Edited with an Introduction and Notes by Ernest J. Lovell, Jr., published at Princeton, New Jersey by Princeton University Press in 2015; page 115.
²Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington, speaking of Lord Byron whilst interviewing him, in the same volume and edition as cited above; page 83.