Everything Small and Modest
Robert looks happy here.
Eyes lit up like lamps
full of wonder..
He is on one of his long walks
from the asylum,
He has spotted something.
Perhaps it is a wood pigeon
clearing its throat.
Or a song thrush balancing on a twig,
beak open ready to burst into song.
Everything small and modest
is pleasant and beautiful. Robert declared.
He looks dapper here, and in good health
certainly better that he did when he was found
dead in the snow that Xmas day in’ 56,
the photograph that ghouls pore over.
He didn’t write much in those last years
at the asylum , letting himself off the hook,
declaring, I am here to be mad, not to write.
- pic courtesy of pinterest
John Malone 
I had to look up Robert Walser. Love the poem. I just read he is comparable to Kafka. Definitely looking up his work.
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I knew of him vaguely but I read a long New Yorker article to write this; haven’t yet read any of his works; but I’ll check it out too —
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Part way through a long essay on the Poetry Foundation website and will return later to read more and dig deeper. What a story! Like Bob, I had to look up Walser. Acknowledged influence to Kafka, praised by Hesse and Mann…spent his last 23 years in an asylum “like a child enraptured by the idea that he had been forgotten”… writing volumes in miniature. Thanks very much for this John, and your great poem.
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thanks for that generous comment; and always good to get a new reader 🙂
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Robert Walker he was an amazing poet. Yes he was in the asylum for a long time. Anita
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he was: for 25 years but mostly he seemed to suit him: he went on prodigious walks like Wordsworth, then one day out in a snowstorm ….
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Like Bob, I had to google Walser. To be honest, I didn’t learn a lot more about him from Wikipedia than from your poem. But thank you. A great poem and a character and writer worth investigating further!
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thanks, Worms; I’m pleased I done him proud; the New Yorker article I accessed — I’m a subscriber — was much more informative, and filed out the poem; the pic on Pinterest was the prompt
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I hadn’t heard of him before, so I went to google a minute ago. Have you read one of his works recently?
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no, just the long New Yorker article from 2007 which fascinated me ; it featured extracts from some of his works, the most fascinating were the ‘feuilletons’ featured in newspapers and magazines of that time —
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Interesting poem, and interesting poets – the subject and the object. Always something to learn from your poems and almost always something to smile or laugh at 🤗🤗
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you’ve made my day: that’s the best review I’ve received of my poems: so heartwarming and generous; thanks 🙂
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I think that last line could be a brilliant idea for a short story.
Thanks for sharing this, John. He had a sad life….
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what a brilliant idea; it may be the perfect seed for one of your upcoming posts; now there’s a good title: ‘The Perfect Seed’ 🙂
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I am not here to be understood or mad. You may have introduced me to a kindred spirit. Thanks, John!
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hahaha; like Frank Sinatra, Walser did it his way 🙂
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“I am here to be mad, not to write.” What an interesting poem and a fantastic last line.
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thank you, Bridgette ; you are the real thing: not only do you put up interesting posts, you do not neglect your followers; appreciated 🙂
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That’s such a kind thing to say! I do my best. ❤️
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