Self pity is a bouncing ball

Published on by Laura Bloomsbury 
That's all. Vicissitudes
of knocks and falls
cast the rubber down.

Down and out and over
the line, into the net
like a line-caught trout
gasping mantras
of hopelessness
of uselessness
of endlessness
until the fish is launched again
like the first small bounce of a rubber ball
a glimpse of silver arcs the stream
parabola of rainbow trout

Self pity is a bouncing ball
that's all. Let it lie quiet
for a while, gathering dust
gathering thrust
for another leap at life.

For Punam’s Poetics prompt: “Life’s lemons and lemonade making” our poetry revolves around dealing with setbacks in life

28 thoughts on “Self pity is a bouncing ball”

  2. The title drew me in, Laura, bouncing ball of vicissitudes, and then the ‘line-caught trout gasping mantras’ and its parabola caught me in its net. I love the hopeful leap at life.

  5. I really liked the lines, “like the first small bounce of a rubber ball / a glimpse of silver arcs the stream…” Very much like the nature of self doubt and fish on the line. Very cool!

  6. A rubber ball, no matter how it is bounced, will come to life and feel the gasping of a fish caught in a net. If it were so, the analogy would make more sense, I think. We must feel what we need to feel until we don’t need to feel it anymore. The ball may bounce with a formula, but living things aren’t designed that way. I get what you’re getting at; I just don’t agree.

    1. ah Lisa this touched a nerve in you and I appreciate your saying so except you have misread the message – a rubber ball has its up and downs and when left to lie in the dust has no momentum. The poem is actually one of permission and understanding as summarised in the last stanza – to lie in the dust, in the keep net, until such time that the thrust i.e our innate desire for life, with or without the aid of a releaser, can create momentum and be liberated from those self-deprecatory mantras

      1. Laura, yes, this did touch a nerve. Not only from personal experience but from societal observation. We have become a society that gets real nervous when we feel any discomfort. Marketing would have us believe there is no cause for discomfort and they have just what is needed to avoid it; namely pills, powders, drinks, “weed, whites, and wine,” injectables, shopping sprees, etc. We an addictive society that has lost touch with our feelings.

        I do understand what you’re getting at in getting off of the old carousel of ups and downs. I absolutely struggle with “self-deprecatory mantras,” but it seems to me I’m not quite ready to let go of them yet — or I would have? Maybe they will end when I lay down to rest?

        I appreciate you engaging in dialogue here. Thank you ❤

        1. I agree there is a societal emphasis on positive thinking as the solution to all ills which is not only a false flag but unhelpful to any of us that cannot muster such an M.O. No wonder there is so much addiction but then mankind has always sought ways of leaving reality!

          the poet too knows about self-deprecatory mantras and most poems more or less have a bio basis.

    2. typo in there. I should have typed: A rubber ball, no matter how it is bounced, will NOT come to life and feel the gasping of a fish caught in a net. 

  7. Great poem and I especially like the final stanza – except the thrust/dust rhyme feels a little in the way to me.

    1. thank you and that’s interesting but they are necessary as they are the poles between which the self operates in and against the vicissitudes

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