What Can I Do to Keep You from Despair

August 1, 2013 #748

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem about mental illness.

You can hear me read the poem and listen to the music for it at my site by going to http://www.poemsforfree.com/week.html.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

What can I do to keep you from despair?
You turn from me with darkness in your heart.
It doesn't seem to matter that I'm there,

Or how much more or less I show I care
Once the suicidal drumbeats start.
What can I do to keep you from despair?

Life itself seems what you cannot bear
For reasons that no reasoning can chart.
It doesn't seem to matter that I'm there,

Or that I try to make each day seem fair
With all my passionate will and bumbling art.
What can I do to keep you from despair?

I try my best to love you well, and share
With you your pain, and take your part.
It doesn't seem to matter that I'm there.

There is a stranger who takes over where
There was a friend – loving, playful, smart.
What can I do to keep you from despair?
It doesn't seem to matter that I'm there.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at http://youtu.be/3bPqXnNsXHw .