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1 " Constantly fighting funny familiar feelings of futility,trying to put the brakes on the morbidity,but it keeps rolling down the line.And as I watch it disappear,life as I have long known it,becomes ll the more preciousand acutely defined. "
― John Tottenham , The Hate Poems
2 " NAP ON A MUGGY AFTERNOONWhen we part, all the closeness and pleasureof our time together immediately dissolvesinto lonely agitation. Having shared a cool iron bedwith a warm and beautiful woman, I return homeand lie incapacitated on the sofa: drained, dismantled,wracked with longing and restlessness;yet somehow, despite the dismal aftereffects,it seems worth it.The Hate PoemsJohn Tottenham "
3 " WINDSONGI have a heart like a wheelbarrow,there are no windmills in my mind.Love blows in and floats around freelylike the wind - getting in the wayof other things.This rootless love without design,which has no object, point or point of origin -one looks for it in every face,looking for somebody to become that placewhere everything that falls apartfalls into place.It seeks definition, a place of rest,to find its home in a woman's breast -to die there, or multiply there.When, surely to keep it to oneselfwould be best.The Hate PoemsJohn Tottenham "
4 " You looked awaywhen we passed each other on the street.Then you disappeared again,and your life was complete.The Hate Poems, p.54John Tottenham "
5 " You yearned to earn the right to have your problemstaken seriously, to move onand claim your reward:the right to be bored.The Hate PoemsJohn Tottenham "
6 " SENSE AND INSENSIBILITYYou fell just far enoughto break your fall, losing itwhile being careful not to lose it all.A struggle embraced conditionally,that you could emerge from victoriously,with enhanced credibility.The Hate PoemsJohn Tottenham "
7 " I can go from biting lonelinessto social claustrophobia - and back - in ten seconds flat.The Hate PoemsJohn Tottenham "
8 " Cast further adrift by this subtle urgency,I can feel my precious life ebbing away.Better to be a recluse than a loose wreck,a small fish in a pond instead of lost at sea.Erudition without motivation cuts no ice around here;the extent of my ambition is shabby gentility.The Hate PoemsJohn Tottenham "
9 " LETTING GOIn a constant state of choking down bitterness.Getting it all down in the hope of exhausting it.Only to find there's more, it multiplies.How empty my life would be without it.What a gaping hole it would leave.And what could possibly take its place?That's a good question...I'm drawing a blank.To 'let go' of bitterness and resentment:It's an interesting concept.I must try it sometime.No hurry.The Hate PoemsJohn Tottenham "
10 " I have never been in a relationship,even when I was enjoying it,without continually plotting how to get out of it. "
11 " As you cling to me affectionately,covering me with tender kisses,I visualize you, in great detail,melting beneath the thrusts of another,and imagine how much I'll miss you,once I've finally succeeded in alienating you. "
12 " It's sensitizing, of course,to feel this way,and ideally it should nurtureother areas of one's life like gentle rain.But this sort of happiness feelslike a dead end. Bliss:but I would still be relievedwere it to end.No problem:That can be arranged. "