If karma, why?
 

Why, if Karma?

Karma? No, that’s
a lie.
Your guileless eyes imply the possibility
but we both know life is never that fair.

Why does time break into a gallop when you want it to stop
and slow to a snail’s pace when you wish yourself away?
Why is hunger, and war,
While their masters live in well-protected mansions?

And smaller than that, sadder:
why do the people we love the most
often love us the least?
Why does the toast always land butter-side down
even when we’ve been good?

Oh, not death,
but grinding weariness -
surely a harsh punishment for so little sin?

We shout at policemen,
“why don’t you go and get the thugs who did this?”
when they bring home drunken teenagers.
But they can’t. They’re agents of a concept of retribution and justice
which is only beautiful idealism given voice.

Why does the toast land butter side down?

And how, when tossers become your manager,
while your cousin died at 16,
are we still taking about this?

This is beautiful, full of meaning.

My ex-girlfriend had problems with her heart and she was 16, I realy feared for her life, so I can identificy with this, at least somwhow.

Usually I find poems like this redundant and cliche; yours, however, breathed life into a staid topic. You're definitely talented.

I love this. Certainly revives a cliché subject with fervour.

Thanks everyone. Of all the poems I've posted since I joined this is the one I'm least sure about - I was a bit stoned when I wrote and posted it (as can be surmised by my inability to get the title right), and indulging my inner emo. Seemed deep at the time. *shrug* I didn't write the policaman bit properly, so I might redo it. Looking back, I'd change quite a lot. Can people tell me the bits they disliked?

From 'and how when tossers become your managers' onwards the poem starts to dip a little in quality.

Cheers! I think the policaman bit is terribly written and doesn't convey what I wanted it to at all. The last three lines are my favourite part though! I got sloppy and just repeated the toast part as well, because I wanted a "why" before the "how" at the end, so i'll rethink that - repetition as filler is nearly always a mistake.

Thanks for the advice. :)

I think if it ended on 'Why does the toast land butter-side down?' it would be a great end.

Interesting that the part you dislike the part I like. I'll give it some thought.

Thanks for your comments, they're much appreciated.

The policeman part is a little messy, it's not as clear as it should be.
I liked the ending, too, but it changes the poeminto something different, more like a beggining of a new part.

It's not supposed to, though. The whole poem is about the very unfairness of life as proof that karma is an invented concept, and the last lines are supposed to be a continuation of that idea. The fact that you're the second person to take issue with those lines shows that it doesn't fit as well I thought it would.

Thanks for your comments. This kind of feedback is very helpful.

I like those lines, but they don't fit as an ending. That's a new subject already.

I see karma as a calming statemnt that says "Things just happen in life and you don't need to wory about it since you can't change it either way. There are things that will happen either way, like death, and It's better to laugh at them then to get depressed."
Read Shogun, if you haden't read it yet. Besides the great story it refers alot to karma.

To me, that sound more like Buddhism if you substitute serenity for laughter. I guess the concept of karma I was working from is the very general mainstream idea that we reap what we sow in life, and good deeds come back to you. Kind of New Age and watered down, but I hear it from people all the time. Thanks, I'll look for Shogun.

That's so amusing, since karma is..different.
It's the ability to laugh after you had barely escape death, because it's karma that you stayed alive.