you make the decision to die
but you do not
the breath of fresh-air dawn waking you,
a few laps around the track nearby,
salt water and the texture of shade and light
you wish the world solid gray,not black and white
the rocks around you conglomerates
not a char of coal and granite
and day changes to evening,
evening to moonlight
dying is not a competitive sport
| Copyright © 2021 by Michael H. Brownstein Michael H. Brownstein’s volumes of poetry, A Slipknot Into Somewhere Else and How Do We Create Love?, were published by Cholla Needles Press in 2018 & 2019, respectively. |
This beautiful but disturbing poem makes me worry about my fellow Moristotle contributors. My thoughts often parallel the phrases above, but without the "few laps" and the "salt water", alas. I can see how those would help. Again, another heart-achingly beautiful poem by a brilliant poet. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteEric, knowing as I of course do what the subject has been of a number of my own posts, I have the uneasy feeling that it is I among your fellow Moristotle contributors whom you have in mind….
DeleteBut still, I comprehend little of this, and I still ask, with Burt Bacharach, “What’s it all about, Alfie?”
Moristotle,
DeleteExplain it to me in color--where do I lose yu?
Ha, bumbling me was pretty much at sea in the underbrush trying to "elicit" meaning or significance or personal application from your poem. I caught on, I think, to the first five lines, or, that is, I took from them (or contributed to them) the thought that, though I may feel "near death," still yet experiences (of air, of breathing, of perspiring, of water, of light and shade) can revive life in me. But "wishing the world solid grey" or the rocks "conglomerates" and "not a char of goal and granite" evoke nothing. And the thought I associate with "dying not being a competitive sport" is really off-the-wall: AM I MYSELF "competing" with other old men in some of my posts, trying to "out-die" them? (Maybe you begin to see why I "touchily" questioned Eric whether I was I among the fellow Moristotle contributors he had in mind.)
DeleteThe middle is the depressed mind, but the end takes day into evening and our subject goes with the motion and realizes how permanent suicide is and thereby understands it cannot be competitive.
DeleteHope that helps.
It might have helped for the beginning, middle, and end to have been separate stanzas, with a blank line between them. And now I can see that the experiences of air, etc. don’t “revive life in me,” but merely signify the continuation of physical existence, in a depressed state. Very good!
DeleteGood suggestions--maybe in a revision!
DeleteEric,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your most kind words.
You’re welcome, but I hope you can provide more than my feeble suggestions. I read the poem again just now, with special attention to its title – “Because You Tell Them You Are More Depressed” [emphasis mine] – and I think I’m more baffled by the poem than ever!
DeleteShould I have tried to surface all of this PRIOR to publication – during editing? I hope I didn’t fail you. I hardly feel competent to suggest improvements beyond the superficial of punctuation (mostly).
DeleteI like the poem the way it is--and you're still the best editor I have had a chance to work with.
ReplyDeleteI am generally 99.9% confident to publish your poems as submitted, expecting that, of course, you like them just that way. Thanks for the compliment, and I am proud to be a valued editor.
DeleteI understand this poem perfectly-at least my interpetation thereof, and isn' that all any of us have, our view, with our experiences, our opinions, our biases? My depression manifests as anxiety. Luckily for me, suicide is simply not in my DNA. Gonna die anyway, why rush things? But given the life you are clearly driven to lead, my friend, small wonder you might be a bit depressed.
ReplyDeleteRoger,
ReplyDeleteAs usual, thank you for your insightful reading/