Why All Great Poets Kill Themselves (Poetry)
09th September 2012
The spotlight is a lonely desert isle
and not a place a sane man wants to be —
singled out, an odd-ball talking wild
wounded, entrails spilling publicly.
It’s not a place for cowards or the weak
who write their diaries with a censored hand
it’s down to those who stagger from the wreck —
tell everything and risk that they’ll be damned.
A lifespan is as long as poems are —
lines can swallow months or run for years —
a surge of blood, a spasm of the heart
and words fall on the paper true as tears.
The ritual is a daily work of art
but once they’re drained there’s nothing left to write —
the sun has dimmed, the tide now too far out...
and so the pills, the blade, the welcome night.
and not a place a sane man wants to be —
singled out, an odd-ball talking wild
wounded, entrails spilling publicly.
It’s not a place for cowards or the weak
who write their diaries with a censored hand
it’s down to those who stagger from the wreck —
tell everything and risk that they’ll be damned.
A lifespan is as long as poems are —
lines can swallow months or run for years —
a surge of blood, a spasm of the heart
and words fall on the paper true as tears.
The ritual is a daily work of art
but once they’re drained there’s nothing left to write —
the sun has dimmed, the tide now too far out...
and so the pills, the blade, the welcome night.