Howard Firkin
self-portrait on a blank canvas
I always thought to rescue something from
the crowded isolation of existing,
thought something might ignite by my persisting;
a fizzer bigger than a sherbet bomb,
and nothing comes from nothing, that’s assured.
You ask me to reveal myself, but how?
It’s nothing I conceal. There’s nothing there.
I’m just a mass in space, displacing air,
that’s seriously empty, stern to prow.
I’m one of nature’s vacuums: all abhorred...

More dreary self-reviling, roll your eyes,
ignore it and go back the way you came.
You got this far; it can’t be a surprise
to find that froth and bubble ’s only scum.