maybe death has no meaning

[heslopian]

Sylvia Plath with her head in the stove
like Alice with her legs poking out of the hole.

John Berryman falling from the bridge
like a nickel tossed over someone's balcony.

Ian Curtis tying his noose to the sound
of his wife departing down the drive.

Kurt Cobain cocking his shotgun
as Boddah* slowly waves goodbye.

Sarah Kane dangling from a shoelace
while nurses smoke ciggies outside.

When I was fifteen I believed in meaning.
Now I believe the abyss is shallow,
that the stars sometime shine, and sometimes they don't.

*Childhood imaginary friend, whom his suicide note was addressed to.

[billy]

Sylvia Plath with her head in the stove
like Alice with her legs poking out of the hole.

John Berryman falling from the bridge
like a nickel tossed over someone's balcony.

Ian Curtis tying his noose to the sound
of his wife departing down the drive.

Kurt Cobain cocking his shotgun
as Boddah* slowly waves goodbye.

Sarah Kane dangling from a shoelace
while nurses smoke ciggies outside.

"There's something in all this, I'm sure..."

When I was fifteen I believed in meaning.
Now I believe the abyss is shallow,
that the stars sometime shine, and sometimes they don't.

*Childhood imaginary friend, whom his suicide note was addressed to.

while the couplets are great in themselves i feel i want more (not sure what of maybe a bit of enlightenment) the first two in particular gave poignant images

the last three lines work well and do assist me in seeing there's been a transition from black to grey
and that the 1st person in them has somehow realized that while life is never a bowl of cherries, there are
cherries to be found now and again and if only a few. in turn; life is worth living

my problem is that if the last verse is meant as a continuation from the line above, then i got it completely wrong
and it means the ist person in the last verse did them self in because there just weren't enough cherries all the time.,

while ambiguity can be good i feel a need some connection from the great couplets to the good three liner.

thanks for the read jack

[heslopian]

Do you think a better connection could be made by removing the line in dialogue?

[billy]

if the fact that stars sometimes do appear means theres some point to life then yes i think that would help
but if it means the opposite then keep it. jmo

[heslopian]

The basic point of the poem is that life has no meaning, that it isn't a universally positive or negative experience. Some people are happy, others are not. There are upsides and downsides, some cherries in the bowl, as you said. That line in dialogue was part of the original last verse which I changed because I found it too flat, though I liked that line too much to discard it. But if it obscures my meaning I'll ditch it right away.

[billy]

only do that if you think it warrants it, not because i might be obscured hehe.

i just got the feeling in the poem that the 1st person was interested in topping himself
and then he wasn't or vice verse. i wasn't sure. sorry if i'm not being lucid jack.
and don't get me wrong the poem in itself is a really good one. i'm or i just wasn't sure how i should read the 1st person's POV.

[heslopian]

The poem doesn't have a narrator as such, at least not in the sense of a fully fledged character. It isn't about wanting to commit suicide or not, it's just about whether suicide and death has a meaning. (See, and you thought you weren't being lucid!)

[billy]

thanks jack.

i meant the one in the last three line (ist person saying 'I' ) i took it it was they posing the rhetorical questions

[heslopian]

Yeah admittedly mentioning a specific age does take away from the third person somewhat I'd forgotten about that, sorry.