Mine is Suffering from Clinical Depression!

February* is Known As the Most Depessing of Months, So I Guess it's the Right Month for This Topic.

Love and heartbreak are topics addressed by nearly every poet who ever drew breath, in some way or another, at some point in her writing career. For some, they are the only topics ever broached. (I'm talking to you, Romantic poets.)

But what of hate? Who writes of hatred? (aside from mournful, petulant adolescents, that is) And why might someone write of hatred when there are so many more palatable subjects to cover?

Let's be honest. Sometimes it just feels right. Like the action hero who gets the bad guy by contravening every one of his constitutional, civil, and human rights (and beating him to a bloody pulp). We don't really want it to happen, but damn, it feels good to vent. It gives us a way (venting, not beating) to deal with the frustrations we encounter in our own daily lives and our worries about the future.

In that spirit, I offer James Stephens' take on the subject.

Hate

My enemy came nigh,
And I
Stared fiercely in his face.
My lips went writhing back in a grimace,
And stern I watched him with a narrow eye.
Then, as I turned away, my enemy,
That bitter heart and savage, said to me:
"Some day, when this is past,
When all the arrows that we have are cast,
We may ask one another why we hate,
And fail to find a story to relate.
It may seem then to us a mystery
That we should hate each other."

Thus said he,
And did not turn away,
Waiting to hear what I might have to say,
But I fled quickly, fearing had I stayed
I might have kissed him as I would a maid.


*So is every other month. It just depends upon the source!

SIGH.

Wild Geese

Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

© Mary Oliver.

Résumé

Dorothy Parker

Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren’t lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.

© 1998-2010 Poetry X.
from: Enough Rope / c.1926

A GREAT QUOTE I WISH I'D SAID

I was talking to my favorite bureaucrat, (the one responsible for helping me through the world of retraining, with all of its rules, regulations, and mandates) we got to discussing the economy, and I commented on how it was just my luck to have just graduated with a great degree and lots of experience into "1930." His response was great:

"Yeah,
I wake up every morning now
expecting to see everything in black and white!"

Hey. Sorry for my absence this past week; but when you're a job hunting, newly minted teacher, the window of opportunity is narrow. I was told by a very pleasant woman whom I called for information, that there are as many as a hundred applicants for many positions. I confessed that I really would not like to have her job, and she just sighed.

So as you might guess, after seven years of school work with a 3.9 GPA, and many years of tutoring reading and English - I feel a bit lost. A killer resume and lots of job apps have not even netted me an interview.

Maybe I can wear my degrees and credential, printed on a t-shirt when I work at Walmart.

Any suggestions for fighting the depression that sets in when you finally succeed and accomplish your greatest goals, only to have the world desert you?



I found a great site with some wonderful depression era artwork. It's called the Depression Art Gallery and this picture is from that site.

I bet you can't guess the name of this picture.

It's No Work, by Blanche Grambs (1935), and seems to say it all.

Are you sensing a theme in this post?