depression

Epistolary Expository Prose

Howdy, Y’all,

I think the a/c has been running since May. It’s August now, driving hotly through a summer of record temperatures and daily threats of more Texas power grid snafus. I just missed being born in this horrible month, but I know several who are so saddled. Yes. I should be grateful. Maybe I am, but.

I’m also somewhat non-clinically depressed and worried, not about me even though if I ain’t dead in ten years, I will be in twelve and if I leave the world better, will it be good enough?

Fourteen billion eyes, ears, and feet, for now; and I only ask for a couple dozen or so to be alright. Go ahead. Ask. How’s that workin’ for me?

Half of humanity seems nuts and hates the other half who hate back. There’s a hypothetical, conjectural god who seems completely cavalier about it all and is dismissal about unbridled slavery, too. They insist I stock credence and believe. What? Why?

The most important thing, apparently, comes conveniently after, and it’s not heaven. It’s hell. That’s where August takes all three-hundred and sixty-five days and nothing was last or is next and some guy keeps asking, what if this is as good as it gets? Ever?

Sweet dreams are made of this,

Amen to that,

Bill

PS: Everybody’s looking (both ways) for something. Mind the gaps for what some of them want to do. Who am I to disagree?

The Eurythmics have an interesting history.

dVerse—Prosery Monday—Lost/Found/Lost Children (12/06/2021)

From the bar at dVerse, Lisa pitched me the Prosery Monday poem, “When We Sing Of Might,” by Kimberly Blaeser (see it here).

From the poem, Lisa lifted a line for me to fold into a piece of prose of fewer than 145 words of my own making but including the line, “I dress in their stories patterned and purple as night.”

I had to use every word of the entire line. I was allowed to change punctuation and to capitalize words, but I was not permitted to insert words in between parts of the sentence.

But for the Grace of What?

I walked the muddy road through the depressingly disgusting homeless camp. There was nothing but mud everywhere; muddy tents and muddy mad people totally demoralized and pissed off at the world that had put them here. They were angry about being in this place and they refused to come to terms with what they themselves had created, not just a camp, but a metaphor for their lost lives, an intractable bog of stink and decay. The city provided piss pits and shit pots smelled to hell and back. These lost souls were in the grips of unshakable petulance. It was in their eyes, posture, and the way they walked. To report on this homeless debacle, I knew what I had to do. I would be in Rome and do as they did. Briefly, I dress in their stories—patterned and purple as night.

Look both ways to see all that’s there.
Mind the gaps, but spare judgement.
There, but for the good grace of random fortune, go I.

Access other prosery pieces here.

Poetry: Fear and Dread

Fear and dread
have settled like two large stones
into the pit of my stomach,
depression diving sudden and deep
into my gut.

My mind is occupied
with thoughts of impossible
lifesaving attempts.
I’m unable to focus.

Tears press against my eyes
wanting to be released,
my composure is thread bare.
I want to live without
such deep desperation or
just to fucking die.

I feel such a sadness
like I’ve never known,
like others have suffered,
some in shock, some like me
a slowly turning poisoned
pair of pits, burning
stones within my body,

Making me the saddest
of men, of fathers or mothers,
some sons or daughters
feeling helpless and worthless
unable to save the things we love
the most. Such agony
is the human condition.

***

Look both ways on good days and bad.
Mind the gaps of the bad on good days,
and good on the bad.

Sammi’s Weekend Prompt #126: Haven

Unable to sleep, I wrote two poems.

***

With no refuge, unrequited love
without heavenly haven,
without healing, without beginning
or end. When a kiss is not a kiss,
when one love is lost in lonely
pain, unable to mend.

***

how can we ever be happy
alone in this depressing darkness
void of all meaningful life
enduring these threats from a determined death
never knowing how or when, it will all end?

***

Look both ways, the yin and the yang.
Mind the gap hiding good news and bad.