LOVE AND SUICIDE--a sestina

LOVE AND SUICIDE


We see too much of misery in the world,
We are tempted to think He does not care.
While we wish from others for a kind word;
We only get messages of despair.
Even the strongest man cannot decide,
Whether to live or commit suicide.

But if a man just mentions suicide,
He soon becomes the despised of the world.
Even though he deserves to get all care,
He only gets a rude and cruel word.
This increases further his woe, despair,
Making him wonder what he should decide.

But is it so easy to thus decide,
That finally he commit suicide?
How can he suddenly give up the world?
Does none really for him ever care?
Does none have for him just a tender word?
Such feelings give him constantly despair.

He thinks about the wife and children’s care,
Should he leave them at least a written word?
Will not his death cause them too much despair?
Should he at all regarding this decide?
But then what is the fun in suicide,
If till death he’s worried about the world?

He thinks of writing but a single word,
And banish from his mind all the despair.
He takes only a moment to decide
That before his committing suicide,
He’d write a single word to show the world:
“LOVE”. And then he would give up all the care.

Once the mind is made up, gone is despair,
The painful thing was only to decide.
The noose is ready for the suicide.
Let it be known finally to the world
That for others he did really care.
He showed it by writing the one “LOVE” word!

What a pity that the world does not care
To speak a word of love to quell despair;
And, men decide to commit suicide.


· Written as a sestina consisting of six stanzas, each of six lines, where the lines end in the same six words as the opening stanza, but always in a different order, so that none of the six words has identical numerical position in any two stanzas. The last three lines form a tercet where each line carries sequential pairs of the six words, one in the middle, the other at the end.


· Written in iambic pentameter

M C Gupta
9 April 2005