Poetry / woe (Analysis)

once again i apologize for my belated discovery of spell check.  do you know who e.e. Cummings was.  his poetry reflected the movement of the words physically on the page.
the indentation represents the steps downward that woe takes you

sorry i’ve never read frost

Some say the world will end in fire/some say in ice/from what I’ve tasted of desire/I hold with those who favour fire/but if it had to taste destruction twice/I think i know enough of hate/to say that for desruction ice/is also great/and would suffice – I just assumed the opening lines of your poem were a homage to Frost.

the entire peice is cliche ridden for a reason.  people get caught up in them, and use them to justfy their actions. “if everybody else is doing it…......”  which is just one of the paths to woe.

this poem is not about the good things.  

most of us don’t experience the uncontrolled, spiraling downward of woe.  so don’t really understand what it means to have a heartbreaking trauma that leaves you with nothing but the shirt on you back.  not friend or family or trust in anything or anyone not even oneself.
be thankful you can’t relate.

I am, but I did sit for a week and watch my daughter come back from the brink of death when all around, even the doctors, told me she was dying, at fourteen years old. So yes, some of us have been there and I wouldn’t have cared whether or not I had a shirt to my back. And yes, I have been treated for severe clinical depression too. At the moment I’m helping a friend deal with a terminal illness. And all without a GOD to hang it on. So tell me, what’s breaking YOUR heart?
Bill.

first we’re not talking about my heart.  I’ve been doing spiritual counseling with some homeless friends.  the common denominator among these people is one disaster after another.  slowly they start to see less and less of the good or positive in the world and then even in themselves.  they give up on a compassion in world then they give up on themselves and then they give up on god.
the words of woe are theirs.  all of these phrases pepper all the conversations that I’ve had with these lost soul.  

first we’re not talking about my heart.  I’ve been doing spiritual counseling with some homeless friends.  the common denominator among these people is one disaster after another.  slowly they start to see less and less of the good or positive in the world and then even less in themselves.  they give up on a compassion in the world, then they give up on themselves, and then they give up on god.
the words of woe are theirs.  all of these phrases pepper all the conversations that I’ve had with these lost soul.  
i still work with them and sometimes i make a breakthrough and this keeps my heart whole.
a pray for your tragedies, my friend.  i did not mean to intimate that you had not had your share, but these people are way past those you spoke of.  these people sleep under bridges rain, snow, or shine. these people only get one meal a day if they’re lucky.  these people can’t remember what it’s like to buy clothing, they only get them from a free box at the local church.
sorry about my soapbox.  i guess i get worked up on the subject.
thank you for caring enough to ask

If these are actual quotes from ‘street warriors’ (and no, I’m not taking the piss here) then I think they deserve to be told as such and set out in such a way that we understand that, and this action would take it out of the ordinary self-indulgent breast beating we get on here. If I’d known that these were from homeless people etc., I would have taken an entirely different perspective on it. If you can make them central to the theme, either by title or a short definition, and then separate them into ‘quotes’ that scan or rhyme, you will be providing a very powerful voice from an elevated soapbox on their behalf. Feeling as passionate as you obviously do about them, don’t they deserve that?
The world needs people who do what you do.
Keep ladling the soup

Bill.

Is there a common theme that runs through all these conversations? Have you looked for one? Maybe if there is, then that would be the pressure point in all this despair.
Bill.

you’re right of course.  i hadn’t thought to make others understand that these were voices of the streets.  
there a couple of common threads. one it their feeling that is no forgiveness for failure.  that it’s not an opportunity to learn, but a reason to be discarded.  then there is the feeling that they are being treated as less than human.  not worthy of common decency or humane consideration.  

you’re right of course.  i hadn’t thought to make others understand that these were voices of the streets.  
there a couple of common threads. one it their feeling that is no forgiveness for failure.  that it’s not an opportunity to learn, but a reason to be discarded.  then there is the feeling that they are being treated as less than human.  not worthy of common decency or humane consideration.  

Far be it from me to preach, but my personal experience and that of those close to me, as per the first note of mine, is that a lack of self-esteem is the crux of the problem. I understand this problem as a form of ‘social vertigo’, which means that when your feet are on the bottom, there is no danger of falling. I have known people, and I’m sure you do too, who purposely keep themselves at the bottom for fear of this. The only known cure is aspiration. To provide work and a roof and meals is not enough. If you can create aspiration in others you will succeed like no other in your chosen field. I know of no government that has managed it yet. People need wings, and the confidence to power them, so that they understand that by the dint of their own efforts they can maintain flight. None of us already flying finds it easy, yet that’s how it looks to someone grounded by their own fear and suspicion that everyone else holds the key except them, and that because they are unworthy to. I watch the birds in my garden and sometimes I wish… but then I watch them again in winter, relying on the scraps I put out for them and shivering in corners of brickwork out of the wind, and despite all of that they take to the wing. They have to or die. That doesn’t happen too often now in our society, and a lack of necessity is the mother of disinvention where people are concerned but how do you help people without taking over, how do you allow them to self-propel along the road to confidence? I don’t know. Maybe you do. Keep trying, even if you don’t.
Regards,
Bill.

sorry just found the spell check

sorry just found the spell check

lol