deepundergroundpoetry.com
The Animals With No Teeth
It's funny when you go in
after some time away.
A new looking-glass.
Just to take a look.
I have to wonder
what I was ever doing there.
With the animals.
But all the other mammals face their reality.
They are unknowingly brave.
These things are cowards.
Hiding from their own static-ness
as if doing nothing
is too hard for them.
They suck on balloons
snort powders
swallow pills
chase shots.
Anything to feel brave.
Anything to feel free.
Trapped in a decaying body
piloted by a degenerating mind.
A failed and hopeless decline
in the waiting
being built with every evening
until eventually...
We know what happens:
Those who never try
incubate failure,
but their eyes are too glazed
to see just how close it is.
after some time away.
A new looking-glass.
Just to take a look.
I have to wonder
what I was ever doing there.
With the animals.
But all the other mammals face their reality.
They are unknowingly brave.
These things are cowards.
Hiding from their own static-ness
as if doing nothing
is too hard for them.
They suck on balloons
snort powders
swallow pills
chase shots.
Anything to feel brave.
Anything to feel free.
Trapped in a decaying body
piloted by a degenerating mind.
A failed and hopeless decline
in the waiting
being built with every evening
until eventually...
We know what happens:
Those who never try
incubate failure,
but their eyes are too glazed
to see just how close it is.
Published 21st Jun 2022
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likes 6
reading list entries 2
comments 4
reads 111
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The author encourages honest critique.
21st Jun 2022 10:05pm
21st Jun 2022 11:08pm
This is real gritty stuff, appreciate the shining light on the decaying side of humanity.
22nd Jun 2022 00:52am
I struggled with this one a bit because from its title downwards it does feel cruel, judgemental, and misanthropic. Those feelings are conveyed elegantly, but I wasn’t entirely sure of the value of conveying them with so little compassion or empathy or even humour to redeem what they are.
But then the poem made me realise how much of myself is in its narrative voice. How misanthropic and “cruel handed” I can be. It is an intensely moral poem and that’s why I immediately responded to it, I think. It creates an image in the mind of a social outcast wandering through a modern den of iniquity, so to speak, and feeling a detached disgust at the decadence all around.
It feels like the poem’s describing the state “beyond” compassion, empathy, and humour, where all those human responses fail and you’re left with “the animals with no teeth”.
But then the poem made me realise how much of myself is in its narrative voice. How misanthropic and “cruel handed” I can be. It is an intensely moral poem and that’s why I immediately responded to it, I think. It creates an image in the mind of a social outcast wandering through a modern den of iniquity, so to speak, and feeling a detached disgust at the decadence all around.
It feels like the poem’s describing the state “beyond” compassion, empathy, and humour, where all those human responses fail and you’re left with “the animals with no teeth”.
23rd Jun 2022 2:03am
