Suicides

Illustration by  Snotflower Art: https://www.facebook.com/snottyflower

I am not one for throwing myself in front of unsympathetic trains,

or hanging from stiff rafters.

By far the more exact act is to haul a heaven out of life

by boiling eggs, buying shoes or dusting tables,

when the world with all its things that we have labelled

is shouting ‘Hell’, and taking the hell out of you.

Hanging here or splattered there is no annihilation

when the brain can eat itself a lifetime over.

No heated hemlock hero, when the pure poison belongs to Hamlet

and the whole damn lot who swallowed themselves whole

to find their bodies rising out of bed

to put their pants on in the morning.

Paying the milkman, singing ditties,

and doing a thousand things besides,

are thousands of unsung heroes committing heavenly suicides.

SJL, 1984