Friday, October 5, 2007

An Other Effort

Let me tell you the story behind this poem. I remember posting about my inability to write what I like to call deepdarkmorbidpoetry, and newagescheherazade, as is her wont, told me that she'd like to see me try my hand at it. And I, as is my wont, did. Here is the result. I'm warning you beforehand, though. I am no poet. I am not much of a rhymer. What I am, I think, is a singularly thick-headed experimenter. Just don't lynch me for it.

Anthem For Doomed Youth (Part Two!!)

It seems a rule of some eminence
That teenage poetry must be devoid of common sense.
A teenager must never write a word
That is funny, ridiculous or absurd
For why would the world want to know
About anything but our personal woe?

People think we’re morbid, but we can tell
They’re wishing all teenagers were in hell.
No one understands what we go through
So this is how we make you go through it too
By making sure our poems get into the newspapers,
So that your perfect Sunday goes up in vapours,
So that life suddenly turns into a huge inkblot,
And you shout at your maid because the tea isn’t hot.
Then the maid berates the poor milkman
For bringing milk in a dented can
And the milkman goes on to the corner shop
And tells the owner that his liquor is slop.
So the circle of gloom creates a worldwide fuss,
But no one gives the credit to us.

If you think of why we suffer from depression,
It’s because you laugh at our freedom of expression.
Some years down the line we’ll be adults too,
With taxes that are hefty, and paychecks that are few.
And then we’ll open a paper to find that the press
Has included a poem filled with angst and distress.
And then we’ll wonder what the writer had to face
That didn’t include bosses or financial disgrace.
We’ll have forgotten that what we once wrote
Was somewhat like this gloomy anti-antidote.

It seems very funny to me
That we teenagers write poetry
To contend with the fact that one day
As a grown-up, for our youth we’ll have to pay.
While grown ups criticize youthful verse
Not knowing that they once wrote something quite like this.

Only a lot, lot worse.

13 kindred spirits have swallowed my rambling:

new age scheherazade said...

HAhahahaha. THAT's deepdarkmorbidpoetry?
You're funny even when you try not to be. or DID you try not to be? I have my suspicions.
loved the poem though. and I'll say, 'as is my wont': why not send it to some sunday paper then? it'll be a nice joke on the editors.
and on inam hussain malik.

heh? ok said...

i LOVE the little dash of evil. and as a person who-was-not-an-adolescent-when-she-was -one-now-is-when-she-is-not, i fully concur with your views. but i still can't write poetry to save my life.

Doubletake, Doublethink. said...

@newage: dare I? dare I? *wicked grin*

@ heh? ok: i attribute it to all the hip-hop around us nowadays. the not writing poetry habit, i mean.

La Figlia Che Piange said...

Haha, highfiiive!

Clezevra said...

not deepdarkmorbidpoetry, but amazing stuff all the same. this your first attempt? Anyway, the humor is delightful.

Doubletake, Doublethink. said...

@ opaline: wow, i love finding non-morbid people. high fiiive right back!

@ clezevra: no, not my first attempt at ddmp. not my first attempt at non-ddmp either. case history is rather shaky. so i'll just stick to a thank you.

Anisha Jayadevan said...

*grin*
Thou art afflicted by false modesty, milady.
Luff the poem.

Safdar said...

sum parts are just amazing!!

and someone knows inam hussain malik here!?... christ o christ.

Doubletake, Doublethink. said...

@space oddity: false modeasty? me? i'm a preener. but i'm not the only one.

@safdar: well, yes. someone does.

new age scheherazade said...

"Doubletake, Doublethink. said...
@space oddity: false modeasty? me? i'm a preener. but i'm not the only one."

HAHAHAHAHAHA.

post soon.

Doubletake, Doublethink. said...

YOU'RE saying that? hypocrite.

Vikrant Dadawala said...

This post is really old so I'm assuming noone's ever going to read this comment but I think I'll be betraying both the Anthems if I don't. Comment, that is. Not write another part. I hope not.
Brilliant blog, this.

Priyanka said...

but i read it now. a year later. and i'm grinning.