The Suicide Poem by Louis Macneice
The Suicide
And this, ladies and gentlemen, whom I am not in fact
Conducting, was his office all those minutes ago,
This man you never heard of. These are the bills
In the intray, the ash in the ashtray, the grey memoranda stacked
Against him, the serried ranks of the box-files, the packed
Jury of his unanswered correspondence
Nodding under the paperweight in the breeze
From the window by which he left; and here is the cracked
Receiver that never got mended and here is the jotter
With his last doodle which might be his own digestive tract
Ulcer and all or might be the flowery maze
Through which he had wandered deliciously till he stumbled
Suddenly finally conscious of all he lacked
On a manhole under the hollyhocks. The pencil
Point had obviously broken, yet, when he left this room
By catdrop sleight-of-foot or simple vanishing act,
To those who knew him for all that mess in the street
This man with the shy smile has left behind
Something that was intact.
wonder why /i was afraid suicide my seems goofy / what is freedom i do not know
A suicide poem that has impact, partly because it is spoken by a man on the spot to a group of onlookers. I do like the ending: 'This man with the shy smile has left behind ' Something that was intact'.
i love this poem i have been looking for other poems and writing my own i have been sharing mine in diffrent chats ill be back thank you for sharing this poem once again i love it
Almost the whole poem seems to be from the perspective of a detached, nonempathic observer. And then the last 4 lines startle the reader into considering the possibility that the writer may have known him. Brilliant!
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11/3/2024 5:39:38 AM # 1.0.0
Very powerful because of the apparent lack of compassion- yet the last five lines spoke with humanity when he left this room By catdrop sleight-of-foot or simple vanishing act, To those who knew him for all that mess in the street This man with the shy smile has left behind Something that was intact.