A simple title for this monthly offering, but perhaps not such a straightforward and simple theme, as “blues” can mean more than one thing. How many forms of “blues” can you think of?
I am going with blues as music, depressive or melancholy moods and tablets from the sixties, referred to as blues.
Blues music is documented as emulating from the deep south of America, largely it seems accredited to the slaves, field workers other manual labourers obliged to work in those areas. These consisted mostly of African- Americans with African music traditions in origin, thus understandably this deeply felt and often chanted form of music was expressing a hard life, lack of opportunities and often despair from their work and love.
So let us kick off then with despair from love, or perhaps lack of it, you make your mind up, and maybe it could be you?
Lament for a Lost Heart
This is a lament for all the lost
At least those who’ve run aground,
On voyages and searches for love
That they never happily found.
Maybe it was their own defences
Which ensured no happy connection,
Or possibly they miserably sailed
In the completely wrong direction,
Never to meet up with, and blossom
In a welcoming and loving heart.
So whatever fair winds and tides
They were doomed from the start.
Because most people can get caught
And boarded by loves attraction,
Unless fear, malice or selfishness
Prevents any mutual satisfaction
Of that loving bond and arousal,
Causing hearts to swoon and fly.
But if a love is denied expression
It can whither up and die.
So sail on alone in a wilderness
That is like a horizon-less sea,
Bobbing about and lost forever
With a sad heart not allowed to be,
Cast off to adventurously fly
Just where its passions want to go.
Thus all sensations and love stories
Its lost life will never know.
–
Well that is very up to date in as much as it’s from my sixth and latest book “Poet reveals All (in your world?), and I really hope that it doesn’t depict your blues, or even worse the next in the list. Keep smiling…..
So we also saw above that “Blues” could mean a few things and I left you thinking of more, so how did you do?
Anyway I will continue with “depressive or melancholy” mood as a description for blues that I found, although of course with my thirty years career in mental health I may see it differently, for a low mood or “melancholy” hardly touches the sides of a “full blown” depression, where not even a pin prick of light will shine in a total blackness.
I will demonstrate this with another two poems, quite descriptive and bleak, so hold on tight, and maybe count your blessings too!
Am I Dead?
I guess I must be dead now
For I feel no pain, or a life.
And nothing touches me
To bring succour or more strife.
And I can’t see outside my box
That’s how confinement feels.
Locked in consuming darkness
Which my personality steals.
I look out with sightless eyes
Upon a blackness staring back,
Into my empty, void-like brain
That feels it must now crack,
From all this unseen pressure
Pushing me helpless to the ground.
And even if I can get up again,
No sanctuary will be found.
So am I dead then, I must ask?
But only echoes answer now,
For nothing outside gets in
As nobody will know how.
So then I must be dead
Trapped in my limbo state,
Suffocated and being crushed
By an entity I now hate.
Although a flicker of some hope
I may escape from my regression.
When hearing daunting words say,
I’m suffering from depression!
–
So quite a powerful insight into a total depression there, and given that one in three of us will have some form of mental health issues in our lifetime, the saying of my dear old mum of “there but for the grace of god go we” seems again very apt.
No respite for a short while as the next poem again explores some low moods of mental illness, not specifically cheerful, but hopefully an insight of a world many are fortunate not to see. Well yet anyway!
Downcast
I see you struggle under the load
The world has decreed you must,
Carry and forever be burdened with
Until your flesh and bones are dust.
The withered look upon your face
Shows up the pain racked mask,
As you blunder on the road of life
Cowered by the impossible task
Of coming to terms with your woe,
Along with shame and deepest sorrow
That you and I know for sure
Will be just the same tomorrow!
What you may ask has fashioned this
To bring a strong person down?
Saddling him with crushing weight
And the wearing of a losers crown.
Well the answer to this is simple
And beware not to watch and judge,
The unfortunate stood before you
Whose guilt and ire wont budge.
For he suffers mental illness
Though his earlier times were kind.
But dark satanic thoughts and shapes
Now play havoc with his mind!
So he must project a physical norm
When clothed by harvests of depression.
That despite all his efforts and aims,
It only compounds regression.
–
That is again a stark description, but not to worry we have the 60’s tablets “blues” to come, and they were really “uppers” or meant to be, but if taking non prescribed pills or medications, who knows what you are going to get? A sort of Russian roulette then, any takers? Me? NO thanks……
So “blues” was a slang, or loose name for a type of tablets around in the sixties with the aim of getting you “high” or pumped up to increase your enjoyment!
In admitting to being around in those times I’m extremely happy (without pills), to say that the music, parties, girls and euphoria of those amazing times was all the adrenalin and joy I needed, but hey, “ya man, and peace”, and I rocked and rolled with the best, and again yeah, happily still am!
A lightly less stinging poem next, only slightly less, and from my fifth book comes Anaesthetise…
Anaesthetise
Some times our world will break
And a splinter will cut me or you,
For however we try to deny it
The sad fact is it’s true.
For however much we fight it
A pain will show up the lies,
But there is way to beat this
And that is to anaesthetise.
This though can be very tricky
As no two people are the same,
So before you seek this sanctuary
You must absolve yourself from blame,
Or any feelings of guilt
That may be piercing your shell,
As to disappear into limbo
You must choose your analgesic well.
For we will all know someone
Who has taken drugs or strong drink,
To escape their cruel world for a while
Or a break from having to think.
And perhaps see themselves differently
From the skin and suit they wear
As within this anaesthetised state
You can pretend you don’t really care.
Thus nothing can touch you now
And you won’t want to touch them,
Even if it’s people who love you
Or perhaps those who condemn,
Your actions, words or opinion
So easy when you are still down,
But determinedly attempting to rise
And stand again without a frown.
Therefore consider those you meet
Who don’t seem real as they are,
For they may be partly in hiding
So won’t express themselves too far,
As that would need them to surface
From depths that protect and heal,
Giving both comfort and solace
And escape from anguish they feel.
–
Blues then, and all of it as the name would imply is graphic stuff, and hopefully my poetry has given you insight as well, like my near thirty years in psychiatry did for me.
Yes mum, I still hear you and count my blessings, as again as you say, there but for the grace of god or something…..
A Regular ending for monthly articles
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