Some Days. {poetry}
{source}
In German, there is a word for world-pain or world-weariness: Weltschmerz. We have no such word in English.
We have beautiful words for the slow withdrawal of depression. Words like Melancholia and Lugubriosity, but they speak of an internal angst. It seems to me, we need a word like Weltschmerz, something that speaks of outward despair at the way things are.
The world cannot afford our disillusionment, and there are so many wonderful counter-movements in the world right now. Despair is futile. Now, more than ever, we must unite and roll with the momentum of passive resistance.
There are some days though where I enjoy imagining an entirely private and wonderfully deranged rebellion. A solitary act of madness for all I see around me.
***
Some days
Madness is a bottomless pool
and here we huddle, like sparrows
on the diving board of sanity
Some days I think it would be beautiful
To just dive in, headfirst
Like a piece of ripened fruit
falling to the blue
Some days I think it would be beautiful
to take this lipstick
and repaint my lips
from ear to ear
I saw a woman like that once
she was sitting on a train
with lipstick all over her face
a bright red Fuck you
it was sad, of course
but it was kind of beautiful too
deranged and defiant
Some days I think it would be beautiful
to loosen my hair from its restraints
to stop taming the wild frizz
It would leap from my scalp
like wild dirty snakes
ready to bite
I would squat to piss
and clean my teeth with a knife
Some days I think it would be beautiful
to stop walking like a woman
and start roaming like a thing
I would hover around the empire
watching the Great Whites feast
slouched around the table of power
see how they suck on the tiny bones
of hope, smacking their lips
Talking about growth, endless growth
as though our earth could support
such a thing
this fragile beach ball of a planet
which they swat away
quaffing Shiraz
Some days I think it would be beautiful
to stop using pretty words
I would hiss
and cackle
I would unpack this fury
let loose the unhowled rage
It would trill in my throat
curdling blood
I have been taught to love
these puppeteers of capitalism
compassion for all living things
but how I would like
to spit in their eyes
and wander from all they have built
barking with ferocity
to build a little fire of madness
tinder-dry all these years
Some days I think it would be beautiful
to eat flowers and wild leaves
let the smell of myself ferment
I would read Whitman in the grass
and collect sea jewelry to wear
like a crown
I would sing to the dead
and shriek to the living
I would slaver in the midday sun
dogs would scamper
Some days I think it would be beautiful
to swim in the currents of lunacy
wearing the cracked leather of my skin
It would be hysterically funny
to watch the delusion of society
from the vantage point of madness
and wonder
who should wear the restraints
of the white jacket
when finally they come.
***
Bell Harding is a Rumi-loving painter, late bloomer, and poet from Australia. Her home is a vintage caravan called Lou Lou, which likes to roam and is currently resting in a small coastal town in the Northwest. Bell has a degree in fine art, and loves to paint barefoot in the dirt. She seeks beauty, wisdom and adventure in the raw scraped-back landscape, preferring the edges of the continent and avoiding winter. Bell loves to paint, cook plant-based food, and write pretty poems with sharp little teeth. At 44, Bell is still wondering what she wants to be when she grows up. Until that time, she roams, paints and writes.
***
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