AS If

Posthumous words, yet the man remains alive,
Not long for this world but still waits for dawn to arrive.
His life, is lost, as is, his hope.
Now he sees his world through a kaleidoscope.
Yet he lives as if… He lives… as if.

Scarlet clouds drift through unfamiliar skies
Excreta, mucous and saliva drips, as his dreams go by.
Life with its double-edged sword
Hacks away at his hard earned reward
Yet he lives as if… He lives… as if.


As if life was honest, and worth the trust
As if life had promised, to be true and just
Or didn’t carry a ball and chain
Hadn’t married laughter to pain
As if – to exist was worth the risk.

Mere fragments in his mind, a fracture to his soul,
Dependence and time are all he has now he’s old
His back is arched in agony
As he lives through the death of his-story.
Yet he lives as if… He lives… as if

As if life was fair, and worth the sweat
As if life cared, now he can only forget
Or didn’t force us onto our knees
Betrothed itself to disease
As if...

As if there was a reason for this
reduction to psychosis.
As if -
to exist
was
worth
the
ris
k.

Bumping for comments

The only reaction I could find to this is "meh". Aside from a few clunky lines, it is a fine poem, but it doesn't offer much at all.

It rambles rather, I'm afraid. At times it even begins to sound like lyrics to a mediocre pop song. And what's with the formatting? Spacing every line as if it's a separate verse makes reading a chore in itself.

H

The poem definitely loses something in the formatting.

Thanks for commenting guys... so my formatting experiment is yielding negative reactions, I'll definitely give this some serious thought.
Seems I simply wasted your time Charles, apologies for that but thanks for the feedback nevertheless. I'll hang on to the 'fine poem' comment tho, thanks again.
Hillwalker, I'm tempted to defend myself against your accusation of 'rambling' if only because a poem about dementia could be allowed to demonstrate this symptom/effect of the condition; but I'd be telling a lie if I said it was intentional! Truth is - it was written originally as a song, not a deliberately mediocre one tho. (That hurt)
Delta,the formatting was an attempt to encourage a sense of simulation of the dementia experience while reading, which I accept is ridiculously ambitious, nevertheless I'm genuinely disappointed it hasn't worked; back to the drawing board I guess.

You used the word psychosis AK which didn't link me to dementia, even though you made the reference to old age earlier. I wouldn't say it is ridiculously ambitious at all. Poetry is all about trying different techniques and how wonderful if you re post it another way!

Delta thanks for getting back, dementia is a form of what's known as organic psychosis. What I was trying to do was write about dementia in such a way as to encourage the reader to at least think about how it feels to lose ones mind, the references to his life are an attempt to contextualise the piece in old age.
ps. I'm not sure if you're comment is encouraging me to re-format the piece in a more standardised way or try something different?

I guess people usually apply the term psychosis to other contexts. I'm not encouraging you to be standard Pete - try anything that might enhance your work! Personally, my formatting sucks and I have no formal education about it so but sometimes I read something and know when it fits and when it doesn't.

When you think about it, the poem was not written in the first person, so why use this formatting?

Well this is my first serious attempt* to utilize formatting in an artistic way... as I said I am disappointed with the reaction on here but only because i can't think of any other way to do it!!
(*I did condense a piece for a competition once - I think they saw through it!!)

To answer your specific Q. I simply didn't think that the perspective of the narrator was influential in the formatting decision. Now that you've mentioned it tho I can see it is an important - but not an essential determinant of how a piece is laid out. Thanks for your contribution to my thoughts.

I don't have a problem with you fragmenting words the way you have towards the end of the piece - it's the constant spacing between each line that's the problem. I still think the poem would work just as well if you stopped pressing 'Enter' twice after each line of verse. And your admission that it started as a song was interesting - it was noticeable.

H

I see what you're getting at now Hillwalker. In fact because I copied and pasted from another site it just appeared like that and because I was so used to seeing it that way didn't realise it was so distracting. Sorry! I have deleted all the unnecessary lines now.
I thought your recognition of the origins of this piece to be equally as interesting - very observant sir!!