Depressing Poems

Let’s just call a spade a spade, right?

I dislike the phrase ‘suffer for your art’ because it sounds as though a person would deliberately put themselves through something in order to create. For me certainly, it’s the other way around. Pain can be so consuming that what else can you do with it except try to channel it somewhere?

Reading someone’s poetry, gives you a good measure of how a person feels. I don’t mean their mood, but rather, how deeply they suffer/are affected as a human.

I read some poems and I can tell the writer floats on life instead of immersing themself within it. Reading such work is like browsing tips on how to remove a stubborn carpet stain. It elicits a response similar to; “Yes, odours eh? Bit of bicarb, hun?”

What am I talking about?

About writing with as much soul as a night at Madame Tussaud’s.

That’s not to say those writing that stuff are incapable of emotion, but maybe they haven’t had an intense experience for a while. Love, grief, ecstasy, disaster, massive disappointment…..

Poetry is subjective I know, but when I read bland offerings, I wonder

“Fuck!!! How did it get to that point for you?”

It’s as though some people grow film over the hearts the way cataracts form to cover eyes, a process so slow that they don’t realise they’re no longer feeling. I want to slice open their veins or have a truck hit them. I want to smash their chest in with a pick axe to reach their heart, remind them it still beats. Reacquaint them with the colour of their own blood, their pulse.

I speak figuratively obviously, before you report me to some ‘community standards’.

(Only messing - like I give a shit.)

As a reader, I want to drown not float. I want to share in a feeling. Whether my poetry is your bag or not, I hope you at least feel some of the emotion I attempt to relay, because it’s real. Whether I’m writing about something recent or channeling an old memory.

I’m not going to go through the meanings this time. Today, it feels exhausting.

Beige

Mundanity, it gets to me

The trundle crawl of time

Whoever said “it goes so fast!”

Is welcome to take mine

Hours queue, a traffic jam

Tap fingers on the dashboard

Well worn routes, dull scenery

Repeat congested ring roads

Travelling, never reaching home

Perpetual frustration

Closures, detours, accidents

Extend the aggravation

Motorway, take me away

To where I’m supposed to be

I’m told I’m only here the once

There’s shit I’m s’posed to see

Round and round the bend I go

One woman in her cage

Clinging on to dreams of red

Whilst fighting rage of beige

Loves to watch me bleed

Loves to watch me bleed

A lust for pain is his desire

Must be water’s need

To cure a Phoenix of her fire

Lures me to a tower of strength

Escorts me to the top

Courts me on the dizzy heights

Before the certain drop

Hoping one day, things will change

His demons will be freed

Til then, I have a vampire

Who loves to watch me bleed

What then?

When you feel flat from idle chat

From point scoring and this n that

Had your fill of ‘world to rights’

Rants n banter, picking fights

Debates, fake mates and cheap soundbites

What then?

When you tire of funny memes

Of arguing that grass is green

Of all that’s wrong or words in songs

Of each new face that comes along

Of chaff from wheat and weak from strong

What then?

When only forms of company

That you can find at ten to three

Are strangers you will never see

You’ll tell yourself it had to be

Resign yourself to misery

Forget there ever was a me

But both of us…….

Know differently

Nothing for me

There’s nothing for me here, my dear

This old meandering river

The twists and turns

Sharp rocks and glass

Made victim of this lover

Once, I saw the way to sea

Now all I see is blue

Submerged in freeze, wasting disease

Prognosis; terminal you

Must take myself away so far

Condemn this heart to rot

Earth squirms with screams of restless souls

Who loved someone……..for what?

Our prizes blaze in arms of flame

In places angels fear

Once heaven felt so close, but no…..

There’s nothing for me here

Winds of change

The winds of change are whistling

I’ve been listening to their shrill

Shrieking, howling, hissing

Tortured cat upon bleak hill

I’m wondering what the message is

Those heathen chords relay

Treasures seem to up and go

Convinced they cannot stay

.

Winds of change won’t wait around

They scoop up what they’re taking

Rearrange the face of towns

No care for what they’re breaking

Flowers, branches, structures…..hearts

The elements plough on

Weak won’t survive the strongest parts

Unless secure, they’re gone

The bud that could not bloom

I had a bud I loved the best

I spoke to it each day

More beautiful than all the rest

Its wonder locked away

No wish to confine in a vase

I yearned to see it thrive

Feel rays of sun upon its form

Rejuvenate, revive

Some buds are tight, resist the light

Their hard stems made from moon

Not all that’s meant to will unfurl

Some buds, just cannot bloom

.

Perusing fields that ache their straw

I lend my eyes a pause

The sweet potential ploughed as weed

Limp poppies caught in war

Did they see it coming

Getting sucked into machines?

Chewed up gum in reckless mouths

Their splendour never seen

We nourish what we value most

Pay tolls to nature’s tune

Some meant to flourish will be lost

The buds, that could not bloom

Dark Nights

Dark nights they are a coming

Autumn drumming, light denied

Gold is summoned to a death

Exposing those who hide

Hibernate or face the chill

Of winter’s wending path

Sunkissed is replaced

By opal blisters of cold bath

.

Dark nights they are a coming

Fading twilight mauves to grey

Withering each hardy rose

To thorniest decay

Dark nights they are a coming

There’s no running from their call

Surrender token vanities

Displeased season takes them all

Book Burning

I miss you like a history book

Your cover bound in leather

Ageing pages falling

Barely holding shit together

Filling me with lore and law

So much I’ve still to learn

I wonder if I’ll get it back

Perhaps the book was burned

.

Lucky to have found you

Knew I’d stumbled on rare treasure

Devoured your crumbs of mystery

Poured over you for pleasure

Lessons and confessions

Every time a new page turned

Looking for my happy end

Perhaps the book was burned

.

Thickets form around the castle

Twilight is upon us

Save me from disaster

Or these old wolves shall outrun us

I fear you know a different tale

You heard a knight was spurned

Or maybe you no longer read

Perhaps the book was burned

.

And it’s true they’re burning books again

Just looks a little different

Wielding power all the same

The greedy and abhorrent

But some stories transcend their bind

To live in heart shaped nooks

Potent as a vintage wine

However burned the book

I hope you got something from some of these, that one or some of them spoke to you in some way. Thanks for reading. I appreciate your comments.

I now have more than 300 pieces on substack! If you enjoyed this piece, you can find more poems under the heading ‘poems’ on my home page.