w/e/ 12/12 The Struggle with Depression

[Neville Briggs]

Christmas cheer for some people just eats into them and reinforces that they have no cheer to enjoy.
I know, I have had to recover what's left of their sorry brokenness, many times around this time of year.


The Struggle with Depression.

Plan A.
Alone inside the lockup;
the door is bolted fast.
No need for haste, or do much else
but wait, till time goes past.
Some think that it is dangerous
to be firmly confined.
Not so; the world is shut outside
and cannot touch
the fastness of the mind.

Interlude
The world is loud and certain
it never doubts its choice.
It doesn't recognise or care
about the still small voice.
And there are many battles lost
and many wounded lying
among the broken wretched mess
the once was joy;
not living nor yet dying.

Plan B
Some hold, there is no meaning
no purpose, no grand plan.
But when cast down and joy is lost
from somewhere comes the pain.
We mourn because; we grieve because;
our love and loss are meaningful.
We do not ache for nothing.
Must we despair, or hope
that persevering's purposeful.

Is there a Plan C ?

[Heather]

Well, that cheered me up no end!

Very deep Neville. I'll have to read it again I think to take it all in.

Heather

[Neville Briggs]

Thanks for the reply Heather. I am not content with the result of this effort, but since is is a workshop I thought I would put it up and see what response, if any came.

I was attempting to focus on the showing rather than telling what it might mean to be melancholy.

I mean to end on a note of hope and optimism, perhaps I didn't get there.
It's just a tryout, this piece won't be going anywhere except on this workshop page.

[Maureen K Clifford]

It takes a couple of reads and some thought to get the message Neville but I like it. Could perhaps do with a tad more polish to pinch Zondrae's phrase but I reckon it has got real potential to be a hard hitting piece. IMO worth working on a bit more.

Cheers

Maureen

[Robyn]

It really made me think Neville, and IMO captures the blackness of depression.
One thing, I'm not sure about the rhyme of pain and plan... it jarred a bit with me, but I'm not an expert.
Cheers
Robyn

[Neville Briggs]

G'day Robyn, thanks for your reply.

You are right, pain and plan are not a full rhyme or perfect rhyme and a pretty elastic near rhyme. I did think about it and chose to leave it at that.

Most of the bush balladeers usually wrote in strict metre and full rhyme and some people seem to have the idea that full rhyme is " correct " and any other approach is incorrect or poor quality writing. Flexibility in rhyme and metre has always been used in poetry as far as I have read, it's just that the old Bulletin writers like Paterson and Lawson et al chose to be inflexible ( mostly ) That was their preference.
In contemporary poetry there are plenty of writers who do the strict metre and rhyme, but are more flexible in what is used, than is the case in the style of the old Bulletin poets.
It's not about correct or incorrect but expression.

I think if someone wants to use full rhyme and is careful to stick to it, well and good.
( And by the way, you will see that I can do that if I choose )
I think there is room for some variation.
Too much variation though, just looks messy as if the writer doesn't know what they are doing. That the trap with flexibility.

I put a poem in a bush poetry comp that had grass and past as a rhyming pair. The judge wrote on my sheet that grass and past were not a rhyme and wrote " near enough is not good enough" next to it. Recently I found that Dorothea Mackellar wrote a poem called " Dusk in the Domain " which has these lines
" Grey rock- monsters
Out of the grass
Heaved; lie staring
Moths drift past. "
So I am trying to get my head round the idea that if Dorothea Mackellar were here to put her poem in a bush poetry comp she might be told that she was failing to write bush poetry " correctly "

I appreciate you taking time to read and comment on my piece. Thanks.

[Robyn]

Thanks for that Neville, and I know what you mean.
I've just been reading one by Ogilvie that only rhymes if read with a Scottish accent, but it's a great poem!
Regards
Robyn