Suicide Note
She scribbles her suicide note with fervor,
envisioning birds and thorns, and her
arrival at a crossroads in the night.
She tells of a thread, stitching
rose and crocus and
chrysanthemum together in a
crazy-quilt of seasons out of joint.
She sings of a great horned owl
with the shine of moonlight
in its left eye, but not its right.
She curses the mud
from whose ravenous sucking
not even the strongest foot
can pull free. Then,
in mid-sentence
Posted on November 9, 2014, in poetry, The Poetry Pantry, The Sunday Whirl and tagged birds, crocus, crossroads, fervor, mud, night, owl, rose, shine, suicide, thorns, thread. Bookmark the permalink. 29 Comments.
Magical Mystical Teacher 
Oh my! I guess that the mud insured that the deal was sealed.
http://poetryofthenetherworld.blogspot.com/2014/11/kill-yourself.html
Ooh..what…does the mud stop her..save her…from experience i have to say notes are pointless…maybe nature agrees and you have written that here too..and on that cheery note 🙂
suicide is always a difficult subject to talk about.
i liked the almost incomplete ending..
the last resort for anyone, when everything seems down is suicide and it needs a lot of courage.
Interesting that you should say suicide takes courage. My brother committed suicide five years ago, and I don’t consider him courageous at all. I think he was a craven coward.
I felt right there, and just as intense, it is over….was she interrupted? Did she change her mind?
What desperation is felt from these words. The ending is telling…….
Mary, the mot juste, desperation. The ending is extremely clever.
I agree with vivianne.. the ending is just too clever .. but leave me wondering which is good.. there is the option that a changed mind has occurred…
Yes, there’s that option. It’s up to the reader to decide, isn’t it?
Make my heart sink ….
ouch….what happened?…what a jolt!!!…sad……..
All’s well that ends well….MMT! Meticulously composed!! Loved the ending 🙂
I used to believe that suicide was the most selfish act an individual could commit. Yet, I have talked a few out of doing just that and now wonder at my own selfishness. The older I get the less I see in black and white and perhaps, like your poem the ending is still to be written?
Elizabeth
http://soulsmusic.wordpress.com/
“she curses the mud, from whose ravenous sucking not even the strongest foot can pull free”—wow, that is an apt and powerful description!
Ho! This is brilliant – I love the great horned owl…….and the poem ending mid-sentence, dangling, is brilliant.
Great poem, so very unsettling.
That moment of indecision should not be left too late…for even the mud will conspire against you. Great poem MMT.
I find your judgement harsh. To take one’s own life is an entirely unnatural thing to do… the suffering of a person would be immense to make that decision. I’m inclined to agree with Vandana. In certain situations I think it would take a lot of courage…in wartime people did it for altruistic motives to save others.
My comment about my brother’s suicide? You find it harsh? Well, you’re entitled to your opinion, and I do thank you for making your comment. However, you did not know my brother, and my assessment of his situation was charitable. Had I been harsh, my comments would have been unprintable.
then in mid-sentence
it all ends,
doesn’t it?
Nice.
Randy
…she runs out of words. The abruptness at the end is extremely unsettling. It , of course, leaves me wondering if the writer of the note or the narrator of the poem, ( or both) is the one with nothing left to say . Exactly what a suicide does to a family… So much is left unsaid… Unfinished.. Like having your tongue ripped out.
heck yeah !
… and, of course, as with suicides I have known, the conversation and images were beautiful and I feel deprived, even angry, that we don’t get to talk any,more. This poem brilliantly captures that loss.
Excellent! Written with the perfect ending…
I really like these sections:
“She tells of a thread, stitching
rose and crocus and
chrysanthemum together”
“She curses the mud
from whose ravenous sucking”
Great ending too!
Even a self-chosen death is such an interruption!
Isn’t suicide similar to stopping mid sentence…
Ending life in the middle!
Nice one
…then she aware of choices, perspective and correct eyes (my different too 😉 ~ like the half-dark riddle x