Dearest Allen: “...successful failure(s).”

We met at your Boulder retrospective

of avant garde films

by your friend Harry Everett Smith

Our brief conversation

about G. S. Sharat Chandra

who said he'd met you in Iowa City

I'm in that neighborhood now

writing writing writing

nothing in particular

after a life of failures

It's odd that I should find

this written dedication

to the Learys just days

after the same thought

occurred to me

The list of failures keeps growing

in my unsuccessful life of failure

The failures melt

to leave small piles

of dirt not unlike snow

in parking lots

Someone

scoops it into a trashcan

If I were a spider

I'd fail to make gossamer

near a corner

unseen in darkened room

Barry G. Wick