You Gentlemen Like to Kill Boredom

You gentlemen like to kill boredom,
     you like some distraction and entertainment,
     you attract numerous pleasures by the emptiness
     of your natures,
You gentlemen like women
     but get quickly bored with them and their
     trivial complaints,
You gentlemen write important books and articles,
     you philosophize every day and compose great poetry
     to satisfy your own vanity,
You gentlemen like to eat and drink,
     you like to talk about higher matters like love and beauty
     and you have plenty of leisure time for that,
You gentlemen live for the moment
     and consider yourselves quite liberal
     in your thinking,
You gentlemen love sexual intercourse with many women,
     only you don't like to call it "fucking,"
     "fucking" is too vulgar and common,
     you do not "fuck"--
     you socialize,
You gentlemen have a philosophy about women--
     those fair creatures who can't make up their minds,
You gentlemen are existential nihilists,
     hiding behind empty abstraction,
You gentlemen perform a sophisticated art of masturbation,
     only you don't like to call it that,
You gentlemen have tremendous egos which
     you are always quick to find in others,
You watch your VCR's and your television sets,
     you drink your beer and your martinis,
     you drive your cars and see a lot of films
     of existential nature,
     which you later discuss with your friends,
You gentlemen always say how awful it all is,
     especially when you have too many drinks,
You gentlemen call it a weakness of yours
     and have another drink,
You like to drink,
You like to fuck
     and you like to watch television,
You gentlemen appreciate beauty and finer things in life,
     and that's why you drink, fuck and watch television,
You gentlemen live for pleasure and excitement
     and you're a lot of fun at parties,
You like to observe women's legs and asses
     and tits--you love a good pair of tits,
And you call it the aesthetic and the artistic element
     of your natures,
You gentlemen make keen observations of human nature,
     which are usually limited to your own egos,
You gentlemen have exceptional intellects,
     which you enjoy comparing among each other,
You gentlemen read a lot and like to discuss
     the books that you have read,
     remembering always that you can hide your emptiness
     behind literature,
You gentlemen are held in high esteem by your professors
     and your psychiatrists--
You consider madness a sign of genius,
You gentlemen are all geniuses,
You gentlemen are different and dynamic,
     you are decisive in times of crises,
     when you drink a lot of coffee and smoke a lot of
          cigarettes,
You stand above the cesspool of the common masses,
     though you are very liberal and compassionate
     towards the less fortunate,
You gentlemen like to look in the mirror
     and contemplate your pain
     which is always the pain of Humanity,
You gentlemen love Humanity,
     and that is why you love so many women,
You gentlemen offer me you friendship,
     though you don't like my criticism,
You gentlemen see me as one of your breed--
     another dissatisfied intellectual,
     plagued by the existential Angst,
But you gentlemen are mistaken,
For I will not be content with being an egomaniacal
     and misunderstood genius,
You gentlemen are mistaken to assume that my loneliness
     is your loneliness--
Keep your loneliness to yourselves,
     I do not want to hear of your misery,
     I do not want to hear of your pursuit of the ideal love,
I don't want to pursue the ghosts of your vanity--
I'm tired, I'm deadly tired,
I'm bored by your neuroses and your psychoses
     and your coffee and your cigarette breaks,
I can't stand your great works,
I'm lonely in your intellectual world,
I'm lonely in your world of books and geniuses
And I'm sick of your analysis of my poetry--
Yes, I'm sick of your vanity,
Vanity, vanity, vanity,
Which you have cleverly called NIHILISM.

 
                                 January 9, 1988
                             --Alexander Shaumyan