the regrets of a lesser being

[John Holland]

So life,
I’ve been neglecting you?

Spending all my time
as a man-servant to anxiety.
A slave to black depression?

As a token of my regret
I offer you this gift
of peerless beauty.

Wrenched from beneath my ribs.

Formed into a likeness
of what life must be like
for the pure and the guiltless.

This love I have shaped
with my own two hands.

Working the raw red clay
until my hands dripped scarlet

all over

the splintered bench.

[Leanne]

So life,
I’ve been neglecting you?

Spending all my time
as a man-servant to anxiety. -- maybe a comma would work better here
A slave to black depression?

As a token of my regret
I offer you this gift
of peerless beauty. -- again, maybe a comma -- I often find that commas to end a stanza make for a really interesting pause effect, with heightened expectation

Wrenched from beneath my ribs.

Formed into a likeness
of what life must be like
for the pure and the guiltless. -- those bastards!

This love I have shaped
with my own two hands.

Working the raw red clay
until my hands dripped scarlet

all over

the splintered bench. -- really effective use of white space, so clean after very visceral imagery

Excellent title, John, and the poem is very bitter, not only to the speaker-self but also to the ridiculous expectations of society and the "normal people".

[addy]

I found this poem very engaging... its dark, but in a very civil, dignified way which is certainly interesting. The title is great; positively dripping

So life,
I’ve been neglecting you? At first read this seemed oddly phrased... without context, I first mistook it as a declarative sentence with a misplaced question mark, then I thought the POV was befuddled rather than confrontational. Maybe to make it more clear, you can say "So life, you say // I've been neglecting you?". Just a suggestion though.

Spending all my time
as a man-servant think this should be manservant (unless it was broken into two words on purpose) to anxiety.
A slave to black depression?

As a token of my regret
I offer you this gift
of peerless beauty.

Wrenched from beneath my ribs.

Formed into a likeness
of what life must be like
for the pure and the guiltless.

This love I have shaped
with my own two hands.

Working the raw red clay
until my hands dripped scarlet

all over

the splintered bench. You were on a roll with this... I loved pretty much all your lines. My only nit is I found "bench" to be an odd word to end it on, the image kind of hanging instead of rounding off the poem. Why a bench? But anyway, that might just be me.

[Ca ne fait rien]

Regaining self-confidence is a wondering thing, n'est pas. A long hard struggle to overthrow the lannister and his overseers. (sorry, been watching Spartacus, and the anaolgy seemed to fit)
I like the way you have appropriated biblical imagery and in the act explained the inexplicable. Simples.
I said it before and I'll say it again, Clever Poet.