Bleakness Poem by Saleh Badrah

It's fruitless in this bleakness to seek zest
Or cheerfulness to brighten up your gloom:
For what bird here will ever build its nest?
What fragrant rose in here will ever bloom?
In here where scum keeps generating scum,
Where life has lost its rainbow-coloured ray,
What vitalizing hope will ever come?
What sweet romantic dream will ever stay?
In here, in this disheartening malaise,
Where shallow fraud assumes the garb of wit
And foxiness pursues you with its gaze,
What can you do save in dull sorrow sit?
So leave behind this sty replete with crooks
And seek the sublime blissfulness of books.
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Written 08 September 1999
Copyright © Saleh Badrah