Anomie
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When writing this poem, I wrote from my younger brother’s perspective by putting myself in his shoes, the shoes of a brilliant and creative man who lost his way, his purpose for living, and his values. He is the narrator of this poem and is pictured above (left).
“Anomie, in societies or individuals, is a condition of instability resulting from a breakdown of standards and values or from a lack of purpose or ideals. The term was introduced by the French sociologist Émile Durkheim in his study of suicide.” (Britannica.com)
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So this is what they call anomie?
A grayness,
A blank,
All things devoid of beauty?
When the eternal arms,
Have left me to my own devices,
To toil in deaden land
To paint futile pictures?
I’m wading through waves, through fires
Surely to send a man to delirium,
And as though it never came to pass.
What rips men apart,
What fetters pull him in twain,
Simply move me with sway
And don’t move me at all.
Tears rush like the flume
Admonishments thrown
And I can only sigh in frustration
At all this petty emotion.
For man fills his stage with characters,
And bleeds ink all within his works
Aspiring to his own audience, the god he is,
I simply abuse this alchemy
To bide my time till death.
Call meaning what you will,
Fill your life with love,
Fill your life with gold,
with God,
with spite,
with studies,
with yourself.
I cannot,
I do not,
I know not these simple pleasures.
Perpetually I am not full,
For there exists where faith should be
A deep impartial hole
If I could be normal,
If I could be normal,
If I could love,
If I could believe,
I’d turn away from it,
And choose to stare uselessly into my faithless hole.
All things beat on, as they be,
And this conviction, be it ever so keen,
That existence and living are useless things,
I’d still see what believers still see
That being the world as beauty,
I’d only see it with a more grayish hue
And see the sense it lacks to see
And commit myself to this anomie.
Copyright © Sara Etgen-Baker | Year Posted 2024
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