The Garden
by Ezra Pound


En robe de parade.
            ―SAMAIN.

Like a skein of loose silk blown against a wall
She walks by the railing of a path in Kensington Gardens,
And she is dying piece-meal
            of a sort of emotional anemia.

And round about there is a rabble
Of the filthy, sturdy, unkillable infants of the very poor.
They shall inherit the earth.

In her is the end of breeding.
Her boredom is exquisite and excessive.
She would like some one to speak to her,
And is almost afraid that I
          will commit that indiscretion.

She’s dressed for show, her boredom is exquisite and excessive. She would like some one to speak to her, for she is dying piece-meal of a sort of emotional anemia. God, she sounds familiar.

For a time my bio read, “her boredom is exquisite and excessive,” in case you were wondering. I am not the end of breeding, but the squalling infants that surround me on social media leave me feeling as if I am dying piecemeal. With each grating, chattering, boring exchange — each failed attempt at wit or strategy, I am dying inside.

The infants, with their willful ignorance and semi-ironic bigotry, will indeed inherit the earth. You are what you claim to hate. You are steeped in groupthink and intellectual incuriosity. Good God, how empty you are. How utterly banal and lacking in imagination. Stagnant. Conquerors.

My boredom is exquisite and excessive.

And yet.

Periodically someone will commit the indiscretion of speaking to me and my boredom is alleviated. I will find myself at the end of a private three hour conversation that spans current events, the rise of fashionable, historically illiterate bigotry, theology, and political philosophy — “FUCK Rousseau!” — and I feel alive. I remember the joy of speaking to intelligent people whose minds are faster, more nimble, and deviate far enough from the norm to keep me engaged.

And I want more. This keeps me coming back to this den of sturdy, unkillable infants. And I’m dressed for show.