In my last blogpost Middleton and other musings I wrote about Thomas Middleton 18 April โ July , an English Jacobean playwright and poet, who was among the most successful and prolific of playwrights at work in the Jacobean period, and among the few to gain equal success in comedy and tragedy, and whom T. Eliot thought was second only to Shakespeare. Of his works In the early 17th century, Middleton made a living writing topical pamphlets, including one โ Penniless Parliament of Threadbare Poets โ that was reprinted several times and became the subject of a parliamentary inquiry.
I have been unable, so far, to find neither a copy of this nor even a synopsis of what this pamphlet contained. The artist, the writer, crammed in a tiny city apartment, water stains above their head, mice running in the wall. You can hear the sound of the underground trains You know it feels like distant thunder You can hear the sound of the underground trains You know it feels like distant thunder.
Walls so thin, I can almost hear them breathing And if I listen in, I hear my own heart beating Walls so thin, I can almost hear them breathing And if I listen in, I hear my own heart beating In the city.
And Jesus was a sailor when he walked upon the water And he spent a long time watching from his lonely wooden tower And when he knew for certain only drowning men could see him He said all men will be sailors then until the sea shall free them But he himself was broken, long before the sky would open Forsaken, almost human, he sank beneath your wisdom like a stone. A bowl of noodles sits nearby, already cold because, being so consumed by the process of creation, the artist has forgotten to eat.
They have chosen to jump out of the plane without a parachute, dangerously, madly, wonderfully assured that they will figure out how to make a parachute on the way down. A life in service to art and story is one that features a little bit of sacrifice, at least in the sense that when you choose to do something it means you perhaps close other doors. You can go back and return to those rejected paths, but that requires different sacrifices, including the sacrifice of time and effort.
