Three On Unassisted Suicide

XLV

If it chance your eye offend you,
     Pluck it out, lad, and be sound;
'twill hurt, but here are salves to mend you,
     And many a balsam grows on ground.

And if your hand or foot offend you,
     Cut it off, lad, and be whole;
But play the man, stand up and end you,
     When your sickness is your soul.
—A. E. Housman, fom A Shropshire Lad

---

Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.
—Dorothy Parker, "Resume" from Enough Rope

---

Lament of the Suicided Poet

I, I, I, I—

    I, I, I

Majored in self-knowledge.

    (Sigh, sigh, sigh!)



Woe, woe, woe, woe:

    I have suffered so

Much I'm suicidal.

    (Snurfle, woe, woe.)



No, I won't change my habits,

    Else how should I create?

But I'll guzzle booze and swallow pills

    And prate, prate, prate—



About my awful love life,

    My traumas, my stubbed toe,

My mother and my brother and my

    Woe, woe, woe.



Now I'm dead and gone to heaven:

    Suicide really works.

But Christ! I am surrounded

    By Yahoos, Boobs, and Jerks!



I quarreled with Saint Peter

    And said, “It seems  very odd

No one here appreciates me.”

    He said, “Take it up with God.”



God was on Her golden throne.

    I approached Her with awe.

I recited her my finest lines.

    She said, “Haw, haw, haw.”



“Haw, haw, haw?” I queried,

    Unenthusiastically.

“Oh, Lord, how can this happen

    To me, me, me!”



So there I went and killed myself

    To find there's something worse:

God's the toughest critic

    In the whole damned universe! 

—mark worden