More morbidity

Forgive me - it's the time of the year.

I was thinking I hadn't posted much poetry this month. It's mainly because I've been too busy (or too 'uninspired') to write anything recently, and don't have that much left in the 'archive' that's worth sharing.

This is really just an unfinished sketch, another little bit of playing around with a line fragment that insinuated itself into my skull and refused to leave ("cool/cold kiss of the razor"), and which I've used elsewhere, probably to better effect. However, I think this has one or two worthwhile moments - I might do something with it one day.

I labelled this 'Suicide Note #4' partly because I write so many dark little pieces like this that I thought I might as well - slightly disparagingly - identify it, or 'anonymise' it, as part of a larger body of work, perhaps indeed an infinite series of such broodiness. Any random number would have done: I was tempted to use something much larger ('#378' perhaps); but '4' is an ill-starred number in Chinese numerology, symbolic of death - so it seemed rather appropriate.

Suicide Note #4

There must be something better

Better than the pain
Of being always poor
In a world that loves riches
Better than the pain
Of paying to live
By the month, by the week, by the second
Better than the pain
Of working only for pay
While the soul withers
Better than the pain
Of covering one's bills
While burying one's desires
Better than the pain
Of seeing what I once had, want again,
And know I will never have

Better by far, the brief sharp sting:
The cool kiss of the razor
Is the best pain of all