The Doomed Man Understands

Barroom HeroBarroom Hero Posts: 76
The Doomed Man Understands
John Kennedy

Tell me your troubles tomorrow
When I have more time to borrow.
Because few are living quite as bad
As the poor who sleep in sorrow.

They lose to the hourly pangs
Of addiction’s deep, fatal fangs.
Sinking its teeth they lose power;
Long Satan’s tongue eerily hangs.

Why should I tell those poor to repent
When it is I whose love goes unspent?
I fail to thank the Lord for loving gifts
Assuming they were like air’s subtle shifts.

I am no better than the addicted
Who sleeps in his box, so afflicted.
Though he sleeps in pain for one night
Long I will sleep in Satan’s sight.

Maybe it's a bit religious. Sure, it's a lot religious!
Liberal Douchebags that Blame Bush for Everything are Useless Pieces of Trash. I Shit on You.
Post edited by Unknown User on

Comments

  • That's okay. You're religious. So are a lot of people. But I don't think your readers have to be, to understand and appreciate your poem's import, because your theme embraces humanity.

    It echoes "King Lear", Act Three, Scene Four:

    KING LEAR
    What hast thou been?

    EDGAR
    A serving-man, proud in heart and mind; that curled
    my hair; wore gloves in my cap; served the lust of
    my mistress' heart, and did the act of darkness with
    her; swore as many oaths as I spake words, and
    broke them in the sweet face of heaven: one that
    slept in the contriving of lust, and waked to do it:
    wine loved I deeply, dice dearly: and in woman
    out-paramoured the Turk: false of heart, light of
    ear, bloody of hand; hog in sloth, fox in stealth,
    wolf in greediness, dog in madness, lion in prey.
    Let not the creaking of shoes nor the rustling of
    silks betray thy poor heart to woman: keep thy foot
    out of brothels, thy hand out of plackets, thy pen
    from lenders' books, and defy the foul fiend.
    Still through the hawthorn blows the cold wind:
    Says suum, mun, ha, no, nonny.
    Dolphin my boy, my boy, sessa! let him trot by.

    Storm still

    KING LEAR
    Why, thou wert better in thy grave than to answer
    with thy uncovered body this extremity of the skies.
    Is man no more than this? Consider him well. Thou
    owest the worm no silk, the beast no hide, the sheep
    no wool, the cat no perfume. Ha! here's three on
    's are sophisticated! Thou art the thing itself:
    unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor bare,
    forked animal as thou art. Off, off, you lendings!
    come unbutton here.




    Thank you.
  • Thank you. That King Lear scene does run parallel to some of the thoughts in my poem, but what amazes me more, you thought of the similarities in your head.
    Liberal Douchebags that Blame Bush for Everything are Useless Pieces of Trash. I Shit on You.
  • I have a large head.

    :D
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