Why Are Your Poems So Dark?

after Linda Pastan

You could psychologise, of course,
could tell them dad was mean to you,
that mummy took cocaine
and never made dinner on time.

Though maybe it’s gauche
to flaunt your childhood these days,
as if you’re just auditioning
to be the underdog
of some appalling talent show,
because in your heart you simply know
that you’re not good enough.

You think, perhaps, it’s merely this:
a strain of cynic in the blood,
a slanted sight, a faithlessness
that seeks its fellows out in art,
an ear that hears the sinister
in pop music lyrics, an eye for what’s
macabre and a sickly joy in it.

But let’s expand this hemisphere
of thought beyond your thoughts only,
and take in all that’s dangerous,
all that despises pure notions.
Think what’s been done to innocence,
and when it comes to violence.