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What Life?
Where the vacuous mind exercises itself upon the plight of others
can the suggestion to get a life be far behind?
I shall ignore you, foul harridan, as the tree ignores the wind
Bending in front of the assault without need of the Litany
Despite your vaunted education you pretend misspellings
To give ingenuous aspect of smaller intellect
Hiding your light from those you would trick into retaliation
To prove your cherished belief that all are rotten as you
But I see you.
I catch your quickness at the keys and the rapid repartee
When all around expect your cleverly cultivated dullard
Hurrying from the room at some imagined slight
Squeezing the last drop of painful pity from those who do not see,
Beneath the shroud of deceit, the crafted persona
I shall indeed not give up my day job
It tries to shrivel my soul but
It pays the rent.
I fly, seated at my keyboard. No need of charters
I live the dream that you cannot even see
The one that you keep from your mind with drink and empty words
How you would like to be me, had you the courage
And there is the nub of it
The reason for your hatred
You can never make that step through fear
to that better life of which you dream
So you wallow in your self-destructive pit
And try to drag all around you into it with you
With unkind words
And overblown insult
Disguised as concern for the topic
You, with all your learning of the mind
Are as far removed from your own mind as a child
Sitting frightened in the dark cupboard
Waiting to be let out.
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Synopsis
One of my few dabblings with prose (ordinarily I prefer my poems to rhyme), this started as an angry rant following a casual insult from someone on a bulletin board.
It was a friend's birthday and before leaving for work I dashed off a quick poem on said bulletin board to mark the occasion. Just a silly piece of doggerel anyone could have written - it was only meant as a bit of fun and took me literally a couple of minutes. On my return from work the two-minute, four-line verse had elicited the tired old response "don't give up your day job" from one particular poster.
Whether it had been a bad day at work, or the weather was hot, or someone had cut me up on the motorway on the way home, I don't remember. But my reaction was immediate: once again the words started flowing in my mind. Of course, when a mental rant starts ordinarily you may not have a keyboard to hand, but this time I did, and here it is.